Mia Straka
Mia Straka
Artist statement
Responding to the theme Containment/Uncontained and ideas of public versus private, these new works explore the process behind creative expression; seeding an idea through an incubation period, expressing it into physical form, then releasing it into the world. For me, when functioning as it should, this is like an extended version of breathing. The neckware draws form and title from the early branching of Primitive bronchial buds in the lungs and steps further towards adornment scale from the space defining, pandemic era Cloudbubble works featured in the photographic and video works. Perhaps the act of wearing our innards outwardly might remind us to slow down and go with this flow… in and out, cyclically.
Neckware, Aluminium mesh, preloved freshwater pearls, silk. 2023, 570mmL x 300mmW x 110mmD
Bio
Mia Straka graduated with an Honors degree in 3D Design: Jewellery, from Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland (2001). Her work is exhibited regularly in galleries, and has toured public institutions nationally, and internationally. Work is represented in the Wallace Arts Trust Collection (NZ). She is a current partner of collective jewellery studio Workshop6, teaching and facilitating jewellery classes, alongside continuing to evolve her own contemporary jewellery practice. From 2020-2022 Straka participated on the HandShake programme, provoking creative development and endeavor and traveling to Gallery Marzee to represent and document Handshake7’s final exhibition. Recent work has also included community art projects, workshops, installations, larger scale sculptural work and objects, notably The Valere Talisman Project (est. 2017) and The Talisman Project (est. 2014). Straka has participated in artist residencies including the Institut für Alles Mögliche in Berlin, Germany 2018 and Arquetopia in Oaxaca, Mexico 2014.
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