For me, the work using polyester film ("Untitled") was, hands-down, the most beautiful. Commissioned by the ICA for this show, it is a long, thin display case that can be seen from both sides of the wall it occupies, like a stained glass window. Irradiated by light from the harbor, the strips of film take on the magnificent caramel color I mentioned earlier, but they also create strange optical effects akin to a kaleidoscope when seen head-on.
Seen from the harbor looking in, color drains away, but what remains - random linear patterns created by the bunching and layering of the film - is like a grisaille version of the same image, giving it a whole new dimension.
At the beginning of the movie "Sex, Lies and Videotape," the uptight character played by Andie MacDowell confesses to her therapist that she's "gotten real concerned about what's gonna happen to all the garbage."
"You know," she continues, "we have to run out of places to put this stuff eventually."
Donovan finds no helpful solution to the problem, and her work is unlikely to allay our anxieties about mass production and senseless consumption. But it suggests an attentiveness to beauty, in its unlikeliest manifestations, that may be the first condition of any improvement.
Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com
