Faith Purvey
MFA Public Practice, Otis College of Art and Design, 2010
BS in Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003
Faith Purvey's work centers on public engagement, specifically site-responsive temporary installation in community, as well as modular sculpture, painting, photography, and video. Her work addresses notions of habitation, urban infrastructure, transience, and wilderness, often employing collaborative sculpture-building processes with youth, civic leaders, and artists.
Originally from Minneapolis and currently working in Los Angeles, Faith received a BS in Art from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, and an MFA from Otis College of Art in 2010, where she studied with Suzanne Lacy. She has lead the City-sponsored Refoundation project, a community generated work with multiple entities including Milwaukee Public Theatre, for three years. Her Fort Hauser project in Midcity, LA was a finalist for a Creative Capital visual arts grant in 2011.
Faith’s practice informs an ongoing teaching pedagogy exploring socially engaged art and sculpture. She is currently developing public art proposals with 8th graders in Culver City.
THESIS
"A Sensitive Habitat"
Faith Purvey
Bermuda Triangle
“Fort Hauser,” on a West L.A. traffic island, appears to be surrounded by three rivers or ocean currents. It inserts a material situation into a public space. Viewers are curious about a giant glowing triangle on a traffic island with people painting inside it. They can play, ask questions, talk about their neighborhood, and make new friends.
Fort Hauser questions architecture. What are the possible uses of public land? Who decides? Who has the right to be where, when, how and why? Space is a practiced place. It forms a community out of thin air. The nature of L.A. is transient. I’m living inside of that idea of mobility and trying to imagine what activities can take place when people are on the move. I’m looking at different rules of living.
The Bermuda Triangle was a large translucent tent, among a group of 5 other structures I put up at Fort Hauser. It was pleasant to be inside it, on a tiny cement traffic island in the middle of a huge intersection. It might be a portal to another universe. People were fascinated by it, in the same way that they are attracted to UFOs and ghosts. They added their work to the space, memorializing or legitimizing it.
