Mountains and Molehills

Zai Divecha

Heron Arts is pleased to announce the second solo exhibition from San Francisco-based artist Zai Divecha. The show will feature a new series of framed paper sculptures. The opening reception for Mountains and Molehills is Saturday, August 3rd, 2024 from 6-9pm. It is free and open to the public. The exhibition will be on view to the public until September 14th, by appointment only.

Mountains and Molehills explores themes of loss, impatience, and grief. Many works feature objects that have been piled on top of one another, echoing the heaviness and weight of heartache. For Divecha, the repetitive nature of creating these pieces was a form of meditation and comfort. The monochromatic white sculptures allow for introspection as light and shadow shift across their precise folds.

Mountains and Molehills is a return to a simpler, more methodical, slowed-down process for the artist, leaning into a quieter and more therapeutic realm. The work is analog in nature, grounded in inspiration from the natural world. Think of grains of sand piling up inside of an hourglass or rocks stacked at a riverside. Divecha successfully captures the way so many natural elements tend to accumulate, getting weighed down, or shifting very slowly.

This change in approach was driven by circumstances in Divecha’s personal life, with grief as the predominant sentiment she was working through whilst creating the collection. The artist felt called to create soothing and repetitive pieces, a salve for a heavy life chapter. Throughout history, artists like Vincent van Gogh and Tracey Emin have used creative practice as a form of therapy. Divecha’s approach employs the simplicity of white paper reacting with space and light, inviting the viewer to contemplate their own emotions, longings, or burdens.

Artist Statement
Paper is such an ordinary, unassuming material. We come into contact with it every day: we sign receipts, open envelopes, jot down to-do lists. In these contexts, paper feels mundane and ephemeral, simply a means to an end. With just a few strategic, delicate alterations, though -- a precise series of folds, or a collection of tiny cut flaps -- I’m able to transform the material into something totally different. I love creating permanent sculptural works out of such a familiar, expendable substrate.

I use a variety of techniques in my work, like pleating, rolling, incising, and folding. I typically create one “unit” -- an incised flap, a pleated strip, or a rolled-up cone, for instance -- and then repeat it dozens or hundreds of times to create a larger pattern. I often try to balance geometric and organic elements in my work. And I draw pattern inspiration from a variety of sources, both natural and human-made: bathroom tiles, clouds, storm drains, the “skeletons” of dead cactuses, peeling bark, raindrops on a car window, rock formations, ornate screens in Islamic architecture.

In the last few years, I’ve constrained my work to an all-white color palette. I’m pretty sensitive to my environment (sounds, smells, temperatures), and I’ve found that I’m calmer and happier when I’m “turning the volume down” on all kinds of sensory inputs. For instance, I’ve switched to mostly fragrance-free home and body products, I keep earplugs in my purse at all times, and I frequently leave events as soon as I’ve hit my threshold for noise. In my creative practice, I try to create the kind of visual stimuli that I want to be surrounded by. The all-white palette allows me to create pattern and texture with just light and shadow alone, which feels soothing to me. I aim to create work that makes people feel centered, quiet, and focused. I want my work to feel like a respite from an overstimulating world.

Artist Biography
Zai Divecha (she/her) is a San Francisco-based artist whose work provides a quiet, calm respite from an overstimulating world. By folding, pleating or rolling sheets of white paper, she creates intricate patterns of light and shadow in both sculptures and stop-motion videos. Divecha has shown at Heron Arts, Marrow Gallery, the American Craft Council, and West Coast Craft; collectors include Letterform Archive, Twitter, Instagram, Square, and Google.