Elements for Breathing Artwork

Renata Daina is a Los Angeles based artist whose multifaceted practice draws from the earthly and otherworldly, intertwining personal and ancient mythologies. Fascinated by past and present modes of environmental empathy she creates tactile abstractions of wrapping, weaving, knotting, stitching. Threads of fiber are hand coiled around other fibers creating a pliable medium molded into solid shapes full of movement. These soft structures reference animist deities, intricate connectivities of tree root systems, spiritual imagery, the act of crafting. Coiling itself is repetitive and circular in motion; the technique mimicking our cyclical relationship with nature. Elusive and tangible forms shift from the softness of individual fibers to the solidity of dense webs. Natural fibers and repurposed fabrics move fluidly between surface textures and multi-dimensional structures delineating our physical and spiritual entanglement in an increasingly fragile ecosystem. Born in the United States, raised in Australia, she learned traditional Lithuanian textile crafts from her grandmother, and is a fifth generation weaver. Daina received a BFA with Honors Cum Laude from the University of Southern California, and studied Fashion & Textile Design at the University of Technology Sydney. Growing up in a creative household of theater artists she was greatly involved in on and off-stage processes. She built on these experiences in the past nearly ten years making costumes, installations, and props for advertising, retail, and television. Daina was a 2022 Fiber Artist in Residence at Township10, and has exhibited work in Australia, Europe, and the United States.