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These bases were hand chainsaw carved by the artist. The artist Shou Sugi Bon’d each surface of every sculpture piece; connecting with the elements during the creation process, which lead to cathartic releases of anxiety that benefited her mental health. The Shou Sugi Bon process is an environmentally friendly way to seal the wood and make it almost impervious to the elements. Normally Shou Sugi Bon is performed on cedar, but the artist believes in repurposing wood that is discarded by humans and would otherwise end up in the garbage. As such, through the act of salvaging, she was able to source Texas Burch and create these pieces.

Bases

The Winter, Spring, and Summer (Winter to Summer Series) pieces are an immersive study of the connection to our humanity. These large scale multi-media pieces include film photographs were created on my uncle’s cameras that he used while working covert ops for the government many years ago. These film cameras have light leaks, cracks, and created amazing aberrations on the prints themselves. The images were printed on six feet wide or tall silk and fused to the canvas using an encaustic medium. After printing the images on silk, I delved deeper into the creative process that necessitates a physicality through painting with encaustic medium and encaustic pigment.

Winter to Summer

A journey into the exploration of light capture through long exposure in the studio. These self-portraiture images seek to open the viewer’s mind to the possibility of the unseen. Does frozen and extrusive time, paired together, allow for a deeper expression of emotion when in front of the lens? How do we begin to connect fully with vision beyond the scope of what the human mind is capable of? Is their freedom within light captured during the corporeal movement?This series represents the answers to my questions, although some are still fluid.

Refracted Passage

This series is a fine art, constructed artistic reality landscape photography body of work and is a closed intent project. These twenty images were created in the backcountry of the American Southwest, West, and Pacific North West. This body of work evolved, as did NORNSLIFE ARTS’ (NLA) Grandfathers cancer. Processing the disassociations that NLA felt from life as yet, another person she loved dearly would be leaving this earth. These emotions drove her deeper into the remote drought regions of the West. Then, as fires raged within NLA’s Grandfathers body, they ravaged the western landscapes within the American West. Where fires were absent only remnants of once luscious strong life remained, dry, seemingly barren, and emotional.Could it be that through the landscape and still life…meaning, sense, and connection could be made to loss? Could the use of color theory propel the subject matter within each frame and the conceptual matter on the whole forward and create a dialogue of a journey into healing for the viewer/s? NLA fought to understand through compassion and empathy and to find acceptance that her Nonno’s final days would be nearing. Torn open. Ravaged inside. Could more time be given to them through the healing rains (metaphorical and actual)? Would they both be stuck in their own bodies searching for equilibrium and healing on different paths?One is a path to death, and the other is to life. It seemed to NLA that they were both, that we are all on a wheel, a wheel of death, a wheel of life, and at very different points in life. Nonno nearing its end in his body, and NLA’s still at its beginning. Then suddenly, through sequencing, post-processing, and the analysis of light, a connection was realized. This connection was not through pain but through hope. Nonno had the hope of his next great adventure, and NLA had the hope of the future and the life she could live to continue to honor her Grandfather and family. But, again, the physical act of creation brought her a sense of comfort in her deep grief and understanding that even in death, a unique sense of collateral beauty exists. This beauty is realizing the connection to life, death, and re-birth. In this beauty exists memory and the knowledge that it paves the way for new life and healing when anything is lost.

Nonno

These self-portraiture, constructed artsitic reality, and fine art images use text to contradict the negative societal stigmas surrounding rape and trauma survivors living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as Severe Anxiety &amp; Panic Attack Disorder. The primary intent was my own personal healing, with the secondary to let other survivors know that healing is possible, that speaking out against these egregious acts is possible in-front of, and behind the lens as the vehicle to regain control.

Book I: The Start

This series was created on my journey deep into the wild landscapes of Texas, Colorado, and Arizona. These images and poetry (not shown here) were created in tandem with one another to facilitate my cathartic journey into healing behind the lens.This series of twenty images is one of a kind and will never be re-printed again. Each image was created in-camera and then printed onto handmade Papyrus paper. These images seek to explore the dialogue between our own personal histories and how the size and depth of nature alter them leading to immense personal growth when openly embraced.

Transformative Perceptions

A journey into Feminist Ethical Photography Theory behind and in front of the lens; a deeper exploration into mental health and the healing which visual art allows space for.

Exposed Reclamations

Overcoming, balancing, and pushing through are all a part of life. Being able to stop, breathe, and contemplate all in our natural surroundings through large scale sculpture as the vehicle enables us to reconnect with ourselves and our natural environments. Come lay in a field of grass beneath me and look to the skies for relaxation.

Fractured Ablation

It is from my husband’s own severe chronic Depression that I realized I created the constructed artistic reality selective blur series, Desert Dunes 2020-2021. It is in the Desert Dunes where I truly recognized the beauty of my husband, our situation, and his constant need to be close to the wilderness. It is behind the lens and behind the brush while working on this series that these beautiful imperfections became perfectly imperfect. For more information please see blog entry.

Desert Dunes

These pieces are an exploration of cast Bronze and the connection of metal to water. How do patterns, overhangs, and solid matter relate to the fluidity of water? Upon deeper research and contemplation, I concluded that an in-depth exploration was essential, which further allowed me to delve into advanced mold-making techniques and fluid contemporary expression.

Transverse Motion

My deepest most personal inner thoughts written in verse laid bare for you to see and consider with paired self-portraiture and abstracted landscape images serve as a representation of the processing of my deepest losses and re-connection to feminine strength. Healing is not linear, but it is possible to go deeper than you ever dreamed possible when using a camera as your guide, safety, and comfort. I share with you my journey not just for myself, but for other survivors, and everyone who wishes to partake of this cathartic journey into healing that only Mother Nature can provide.

Book II: Solicitude

Mixed Media

Professional Portfolio of Daniella A. Colombo-Dougovito, MFA, MA

NLA Portfolio

Torrents

When your center of gravity becomes so altered by the cognitive function it as if the earth is off its access. The only way to achieve mental balance is to alter that perception, change location, and immerse yourself closer to the wild spaces on our planet. This reconnection to the wild allows the brain the space to recognize where it needs to heal in order to achieve normalized synapse firing.

Amended Equilibrium

Photography

Abstraction and physical representation of layers of tears.

Abstract Tear Drops

We are naturally nomadic, yet we as a species are becoming so distanced from nature we belong in that our bodies are evolving into weaker beings physically and psychologically. When you travel away from cities, climate controlled homes, and the mass production of capitalism that inherently destroys our planet do we become better? Can we continually become better by knowing, formulating a bond, a connection, and love with our planet? Thereby, being spurred by this love to protect our planet, and want to immerse ourselves again within her quiet unplugged places. These were the questions that Colombo-Dougovito sought to find answers to; the answer she found was invaluable, and it is in these shared wild spaces here she found them.

Landscapes

Sculpture

Most of us move to different places to live throughout our lifetimes, sometimes these moves take us beyond what we ever thought possible, to a completely foreign land, and the memories that are made have such an impact that this new place/country becomes our home. The culture, food, language, and natural environments become a new refuge.When a new journey occurs in the future back to the place or country of our origin there is a dissociation of being an ex-pat, yet returning to your country of origin that you once called “home”. Yet, you still have an immense love for the foreign country that became your second home. It is this, Shed Refuse that allows for greater exploration of depth, love, and empathy inside the self. These memories always remain, the love remains, and the hope still exists in the beautiful experience of memory.With a private collector.

Shed Refuse

Music, light, performance, and form. How does each inform the other?

Visceral Breakthroughs

New Series*

This piece explores the depths of the healing, growth, and rebirth that occurs after loss. How do others view you, as well as how do you view others for how they see you, after you survive loss in your life? Is color, or lack of pigment an illusion of representation, or is it a presence that is not just seen but felt?Traversing into the unknown of the love I had for my maternal Grandmother, as well as my own Mother, I researched the way the loss of these maternal connections affects my own creation. Although painful, this lead to collateral beauty, healing, and growth in ways I never dreamt possible. Join me on a journey into deeper contemplation of life, loss, and the collateral beauty we are left with after the ones we cherish most in this world leave it. With a private collector.

3D Your World

When we process emotional grief, death, and trauma that occurs in our lives we evolve and grow. This piece was created by the artist as a representation of trauma, loss, and grief she left behind due to growth and healing.

What Remains Behind

Self-portrait and Poem.Large Scale archival silk photography, encasutic medium, encaustic pigment, wood, canvas, and ink.

Fallen Feathers

After having completed two graduate degrees (10/13/19 MFA-Texas Woman’s University, Denton TX Visual Arts Department &amp; 05/23/20 MA-Academy of Art University, San Fransisco CA Photography Department), I found myself creatively stuck for the first time in over half a decade. I was struck with the fear of contracting COVID-19 during the few times she felt comfortable leaving the studio or house outside of physical training outdoors, and this went on for months of quarantine. As such this past summer, I decided that I and mypartner needed to get on the road into the wild away from human contact to free up my mind creatively.

Distanced

Mixed media, small to large scale explorations of land mass, water, and nature abstracted on canvas’ through the COVID-19 quarantine lens. Created Winter-Spring 2021.

Terraforms Abstracted

Scratched, brushed, and scraped—the manifestation and representations of the relinquishing of old anxieties and pain that prevents the forward growth of life’s perpetual motion.

Release It

Painting

This brass, wood, steel, and mixed media large scale sculpture sought to explore not just the act of dreaming during sleep, but also nightmares, night terrors, the shifts in the dream state that leave you with a sense of terror, and fun. The artist chose to explore; how does a person who has trouble sleeping due to cognitive experiences work to normalize and desensitize the anxiety behind lack of sleep? Is the recognition of collateral beauty a way to achieve control when dreaming?

A Whimsical Horror

This series of photographs were created in camera using an advanced light painting technique using long exposures. This series-short contains five images in total. Continue the Fight, is a self-portrait constructed artistic reality series-short that the artist created to speak out against the current atrocities including sexual assault, murder, and rape of women during the 2020-2021 calendar year. They are her way of processing the anger, rage, and emotions brought on by these crimes being committed against women. For more information please see blog entry.

Continue The Fight

Anamnesis is an exploration of fiber art and hand cast plaster in relation to form, mass, and line within sculpture. How small could I compress my body under the weight of cotton loaded with plaster until I pushed the boundaries of my own healing and broached the line of being triggered? Where do art for activism, art for healing, and art for social commentary intersect? Do form and mass drive emotion when the human body carries its’ physical weight? The answers to these questions lie within Anamnesis.

Anemnesis

These small scale archival film photographs, painted with encaustic medium post burning, melting, and processing serve as an exploration into past memories. Each mixd media piece, which also includes steel and silk installation material served as a way of processing, and abstractly referencing the traumas that can occur in childhood. Each mixed media photograph explores the ability to process survived childhood trauma, while successfully being able to regain a sense of “self”—separate from childhood. These pieces represent the acceptance and forgiveness that is possible when visual art, as well as the physical act of creation are applied during processing of memory, and leave us with an essential sense of separation from previous triggering emotion when recalling such memories.

Burnt Emotions Book II

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” - Audrey HepburnEach of these pieces, large and small, are about healing, growth, regeneration, and in celebration of the process of death through rebirth. This wood will nourish the soil that it sits on.This series was donated to Texas Woman’s University in 2019. It presently resides in the meditative garden next to the Little Chapel on the Denton campus.