Tara Donovan's Compositions at Pace Gallery London explores illusionism through plastic card installations

Tara Donovan's exhibition Compositions at Pace Gallery in London from 24 January to 9 March 2017 presented a departure from her large-scale installations. Instead of using everyday materials like polystyrene cups or acrylic rods to create organic forms, she displayed wall-mounted boxes filled with thin white plastic rectangles, typically used for identification cards. These works, all from 2017, initially appeared as square paintings or drawings in shades of grey. Up close, they revealed shallow enclosures where stacked cards formed planes of light and shade, with imagery suggesting camouflage patterns or polygraph-like zigzags. Donovan's approach blends Minimalism's truth to materials and Process Art's transparency, exploring depth and surface through repetitive, labor-intensive methods akin to embroidery or weaving. The exhibition highlighted her playful engagement with sculpture and painting boundaries, as shading on flat planes became literal depth from card gaps. Imagery shifted in lightness when viewed from different angles, akin to sculpture in the round, disappearing into whiteout from side views. While her earlier works captivated with mass and complexity, this scaled-back series raised questions about her evolution from Minimalist legacies. The show was reviewed in ArtReview's April 2018 issue.