Deanna Gabiga is an internationally exhibited, fiber and metalsmith artist creating sculptures and installation pieces utilizing textile techniques. She is an American artist who currently divides her time between studios in Honolulu and Tokyo.
As a child she learned to sew, weave, embroider and had all kinds of fun playing with fabrics creating truly awful clothes! Growing up she became fascinated with various forms of industrial arts and all the tools that go with it. Never having room for her own metals workshop she picked up jewelry fabrication and small scale metalsmithing techniques instead to feed her creative drive with metals.
Along the way she discovered that using the textile techniques she learned as a child and combining them with metals transformed her work. From working only in metals she migrated to the comfort of adding in fibers and learned to crochet to create freestanding sculptural forms. Creating pieces that combine the hard masculine properties of metal with the soft, feminine fibers, both mediums are transformed into stronger, cohesive sculptures.
Deanna is an artist who is inspired by her travels, the people she meets, and the adventures she has with them, from climbing Mt. Fuji, to sipping sangrias in Spain at siesta!
Deanna’s largest work to date, Rainforest Butterflies: Flight Prep is a fiber and wire crochet installation project completed in Cairns, Australia. Butterfly Rainforest explores the complete lifecycle of several butterflies and their native rainforest environment in Far North Queensland, Australia.
Check out Deanna’s ArtistBlog to follow her weekly progress, her successes, failures and art adventures.
Enjoy the pieces in Studio Deanna’s portfolio as well!
Thank You!
A excellent introduction to your work, and your life as artist living in Japan.