Tara Donovan fabricates site-specific installations using banal materials such as Styrofoam cups, paper plates, and No. 2 pencils. Donovan cites the unique material properties of the chosen material, such as the translucency of Scotch tape, as the driving force behind her sculptural compositions, which are often reminiscent of organic or molecular structures. In her 2003 installation Haze, for example, Donovan stacked over two million plastic drinking straws against the gallery wall, the multiplicity of the individual components yielding to the overall impression of an undulating, cloud-like form. Donovan’s use of singular materials and adherence to rule-based systems has aligned her with the legacies of Minimalist artists such as Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse, though her work tends to favor biological forms rather than a rectilinear grid system. Donovan was a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius Grant" in 2008.