Featured Artist Charlie Milgrim

Artist Charlie Milgrim presents a collection of eerie, futuristic nests that reflect society’s destruction of natural habitat. View more by visiting her website.

 

 

Originally from New York City, I have been a working San Francisco Bay Area artist since attending college at U.C. Berkeley. My focus is primarily on environmentally based sculpture and installation constructed from a variety of curious objects.

 

 

I also have been finishing up a time based drawing project with used motor oil that I began nearly 20 years ago. My studio is in Berkeley, where I work with a wide range of materials and artistic disciplines.

 

 

In my recent Nests and Urban Refuge series, I ironically explore the idea of shelter. Composed of objects originally abandoned on city streets and meant for human reuse, these oversized nests are built from discarded, barely identifiable materials. They echo the diversity of nests found in the wild.

 

 

These materials speak to the ingenuity of birds and other nest builders, and our shared impulse to gather, collect, and assemble shelters from what is available in our immediate environments.

 

 

In urban landscapes, wildlife is forced to carve out fragile sanctuaries amid human restrictions. While animals and birds may be nomadic, they are bound by habitat, species, and generations of learned place.

 

 

My “nests” reflect a possible bleak future where trees and shrubs have vanished under relentless development. In the absence of organic materials, my abandoned, industrial castoffs may become wildlife’s only materials left for nesting, refuge, and survival.

 

 

The following is a short description of a few of these recent works. Bunker is made from sharp aluminum casting forms of mysterious purpose, arranged protectively beneath an army green bowling ball, suggesting a dubious military shelter.

 

 

Assembled from obsolete shoe making pattern templates, Last Nest is a haunting reminder of our manufacturing waste stream.

 

 

Looking Down on Steel Cradle is a parody of motherhood; nestled among a chaotic web of wine barrel hoops, a single, protective eye peers down on her future offspring.

 

Charlie Milgrim invites you to follow on Instagram.

 

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