Deconstruction Art: Valerie Hegarty

Break-Through Miami 
Picture Link: Locustprojects.org 
valeriehegarty.com

Set on the backdrops of a seemingly archaic building or design set, this deconstructed art designed by Valerie Hegarty establishes a sense of the loss of nature or the nostalgia of the beauty the earth once embodied.

The artist had applied many layers of painted material to the walls and floors. Once she had finished, Valerie used a method she calls "reverse archaeology" in which she peels and removes the material in order to achieve a desired appearance.

With additional embellishments, like the obtrusive birds, the seemingly rash pond in the middle of the vibrant tiled flooring, and the ripped walls bearing some coloration, the installation renders a landscape of Miami and the city’s architecture. The opening of the development that frames the view of a luscious and tropic beach, may demonstrate the transitions of natural environments or may emphasis the urbanization that swallows up the scarcity of such prominent environments.

Expressing elements of Miami culture in the use of distinct Cuban-taste colored tiles and the ripped walls combined with the beach scenery, the design set reveals modern institutions as equally and maybe even more unstable than nature.

Valerie’s project captures the degradation of one institution in favor for another. The combination of the building in decay and the tropic settings may represent a balance of nature versus man-made institutions, but the haughty, ripped, and tarnished floors and walls point out the dramatic transformation from primitive beauty to modern turmoil.