Ava Bock
Garden of Cancer
Acrylic, Nylon, Epoxy, Polyurethane
2019
Garden of Cancer is a sculptural journey about how I've had to accept and live with cancer's effect on my life. For several generations my paternal family line has been devastated by it, I have survived it myself, and now I am the caretaker for my father, who is in his own battle. We are survivors. This is our story.
Ava Bock is a female, latine, disabled veteran, artist, and photographer born and raised in the lower regions of New York. Following the incident on September 11th, 2001, Ava permanently relocated to North Carolina and began her educational journey. After earning an AFA degree in Digital Art, she settled along the Blue Ridge section of the Appalachian mountain range. There she completed a BFA degree in Sculpture, specializing in industrial plastics. She founded Ava Bock Art in 2016 and has since remained a resident of the Tar Heel State, splitting her time between its coastal and mountainous regions. While continuing to further her own art career, Ava supports her local community as a substitute art teacher and a mentor.
Ava has a long history of using the act of art creation to aid in processing the regular stress associated with ongoing medical care. That life is what first exposed her to a world at odds with plastic. Her appreciation of the diverse applications available with resins directly conflicted with its health risks and environmental concerns.
Ava discovered bio-resins as she navigated this dilemma within her own art practice. Since then, she has been working with them while searching for more sustainable and eco-friendly plastic options every step of the way. Her medical and environmental history inspired her to create the bio-resin artworks she is known for today. Whether it’s a color-filled resin sculpture piece intended for meditation practice, a memorial encasement piece to bring comfort to a surviving loved one, or a calming wall piece aimed at increasing the enjoyment of commercial spaces, each piece that Ava creates is a visual manifestation of the search for balance that drives her own life.
