Sculpture Magazine, review
2005 DeCordova Annual Exhibition
November 2005

House tear-downs, demolition sites, and trashy roadsides are heaven for Nadya Volicer, and a good day is when she finds scrap wood with traces of peeling paint. Volicer quilts together such odd bits of lumber into large, whimsical environments. At the DeCordova Annual, she has turned a hallway into a barrel vault of jigsaw patchwork. Home Spun begins with relatively flat flooring underfoot, breaks into a jumble as it slopes up the west wall, becomes menacing overhead, and cascades down the east wall to end in pointed slivers. Although there are hints of Romanesque architectural details – ribs for incipient arches, for instance – the best analogy for the form is the curl of a breaking wave.
Unlike some artists using recycled materials, Volicer never swerves from faith in her singular medium. That every component began as a wooden plank unifies the installation, yet the endless variety of wood – moldings, clapboards, door frames, plywood, plank sheathing, mostly weather-worn, some new – lures the eye and the mind into contemplation of the multiple histories of the parts.