Debra Disman

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Mazur Museum showcases Contemporary Artists Throughout the US

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I am thrilled to participate in “The 62nd Annual Juried Competition” at The Mazur Museum of Art!

The Masur Museum of Art’s Annual Juried Competition showcases contemporary artists throughout the United States of America working in any medium. First started in 1964, the Annual Juried Competition is the Masur Museum’s longest-running tradition and one of its best-reviewed exhibitions each year. This year, 1400  artworks were submitted by artists all over the nation, in all styles and media.

Exhibition on view Feb 20 – May 3, 2025
Public Reception: January 20, 2025 5:30 – 7:30 PM

I am honored to show: “The Body Politic: Black and Gold”


2024, 8.5 x 23 x 7″, bk board, paint, canvas, metal leaf, lace, cord, netting, trim, beads

About the Juror
Annemarie Sawkins, PhD, is a Milwaukee-based independent curator, who has curated several exhibitions for the Masur Museum of Art including Kogyo: Japanese Woodblock Prints (2022), Treasures of Art Nouveau (2019) and Afghan War Rugs: The Modern Art of Central Asia (2018). Her more recent projects include Profound Prints: Art by Exceptional Women at the Hilliard Art Museum and A Creative Place at the Trout Museum of Art. From 1999 to 2012, she was a curator at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. A frequent juror and portfolio reviewer, Annemarie Sawkins has a MA and PhD in Art/Architectural History from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Sponsored by The Northeast Louisiana Arts Council

62nd Annual Juried Competition – Public Reception
5:30 – 7:30 PM
Juror’s talk and awards: 6:30 PM
Receptions at the Masur Museum of Art are free and open to the public. Light food and refreshments are served and ID for alcoholic beverages is required. Parking at the museum is limited so carpooling is suggested.

 

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

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I am thrilled to participate in “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover” at the the Cultural Center of Cape Cod

February 3 @ 12:00 pm – March 1 @ 5:00 pm
Please join us for the opening reception  5-7PM February 7, 2025 at the
Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Inc. 307 Old Main Street South Yarmouth, MA 02664

“Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover“, is an evocative visual art exhibition designed to challenge our perceptions and invite us to look beyond the superficial. This engaging showcase, presented at the Cultural Center, features a variety of artists who use unexpected materials, surprising forms, and innovative techniques to question the initial impressions and judgments we often make.

Each piece in the collection serves as a metaphor for the complexity of identity and the hidden depths beneath external appearances. By juxtaposing the seen with the unseen, this exhibition encourages viewers to reconsider how they interpret not only art but each other in everyday life

Join us from February 3 – March 1, 2025, for a transformative journey that redefines what it means to truly ‘see.’

I am thrilled to show:
Red Notebook (Here’s To The Red, White and Blue), 8.5 x 12.5 x 6.5″, placemat, linen thread, hemp cord, cloth, wood

EXPO 44 at B.J. Spoke Gallery

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I am thrilled to participate in EXPO 44  presented online by B.J. Spoke Gallery.

Juror: Emily Olek is a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Before joining MoMA, Emily was the Janet and Craig Duchossois Curatorial Research Assistant in Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she worked on projects including Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw, Hairy Who? 1966-1969, and Lygia Pape: Tecelares. She also worked on exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center and the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Emily recently completed her M.A. at the University of Illinois at Chicago with a concentration in American works on paper and holds a B.A. in Art History from Loyola University Chicago. Her Master’s Thesis entitled “So-Called “Outsiders”: A Case Against the Moniker” won UIC Graduate College’s 2022 Outstanding Thesis Award.

I have two large scale installations in the show. View my WORK  here!

View my WORK in the show here!

Reception will be Thursday, February 6, 2025, at 7:00pm (EST) via ZOOM. The reception will be recorded.
Everybody will be there:
Selected Artists! Juror! Gallery Members! Guests!
Register below and Zoom will send you a link to enter the reception.
JOIN US!
Register HERE for Expo Reception

Swinging the Pendulum

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I am thrilled to be part of:

The 14th Annual International Juried Exhibition – PENDULUM

February 12 – March 8, 2025

READ THE PRESS RELEASE!

The A.D. Gallery at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke  presents an exhibition that shares varied  interpretations of the theme, Pendulum.
Gains/losses, highs/lows, submerge/emerge…our human experience swings on a pendulum. While we all aim for homeostasis, the moments the pendulum swings are often when we feel the most alive, when we are called to act or react. In the past 20 years, we have faced major political, social, environmental, and personal shifts. These shifts have presented us with obstacles, challenges as well as moments for reinvention and emergence. This show presents works that visualize a swing in the pendulum, a life altering moment, a shift in the trajectory. Juror: Emily Beck considered works from a broad range of interpretations of this theme.

I am pleased to show: It’s Not Black and White, 2021, 9 x 22 x 7.5″, book board, canvas, paper, typewriter ribbon, hemp cord

Emily Scott Beck is an interdisciplinary artist and professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Design at the University of Notre Dame. Her work manipulates and re-contextualizes aspects of our identity that are often hidden within the layers of human communication and interaction. Using video, animation, photography, sculpture, fibers, installation, and sound, she captures experiences of emotional vulnerability, unrehearsed performances, gender construction, systems of belief, and women’s labor and leadership. A focus on art as a powerful tool for visual communication and social change is a common thread between her studio practice and her teaching. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States, including the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, the South Bend Museum of Art in South Bend, IN, Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin Texas, and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL

The A.D. Gallery is sponsored by the Art Department of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Serving the university and local community, the gallery provides a venue for student and faculty work, as well as that of local, regional, national and international artists. The gallery helps fulfill the department’s goal of providing outstanding educational opportunities for its students by bringing quality visual arts to the university and the community at large.

In the 1970s the faculty recognized a need for a permanent exhibition space and converted a faculty lounge into a gallery, which served the department for 30 years. In September 2005, the department announced the opening of its new exhibition space. The new A.D. Gallery features approximately 960 square feet of exhibition space, an upper register with a skylight, and the ability to display large-format work.

READ THE PRESS RELEASE!

 

WHOSMUSEUM presents the “Visual Language of Modernity” at the Sasse Museum

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I am honored to participate in the upcoming exhibition:

“Visual Language of Modernity” is visioned to be a resourceful group exhibition showcasing contemporary artworks by international artists. The artworks have been chosen to provide a unique lens at the complexities and modernity of multi-cultural backgrounds and identities in globalization and diaspora. The exhibition will showcase a wide range of art forms, medias and materials, from traditional techniques to digital work and installation art. The exhibition has been designed to reflect the multi-aspects of modern creation.

In collaboration with Whosmuseum and Sasse Museum of Art, the “Visual Language of Modernity” will take place in the  Sasse Museum of Art located in the diverse-cultural Downtown Pomona Arts Colony at 300 S. Thomas St., Pomona.
The exhibition will run from February 1st to February 22nd, 2025.

“Visual Language of Modernity,” a juried exhibition masterfully curated by Shuai Xu, emerges as a groundbreaking showcase of contemporary artworks that challenges our understanding of identity in an increasingly interconnected world. This international exhibition brings together artists whose works navigate the complex intersection of tradition, displacement, and cultural evolution in our globalized society.” —Sasse Museum of Art

The local art community and world-wide art lovers are encouraged to experience this dynamic exploration of  art, culture, and aesthetic presentations emerging from multi-cultural artists’ communities, their artistic languages integrated with innovation and modernity.

I am pleased to be showing:

“Concurrencies I: Charlotte Salomon Eva Hesse”, 2022, 58 x 19.5″, denim, varnish, hemp cord, gold thread

I am looking forward to seeing all the other works in the show, and how they work together, I am sure, in good company.

 

The Hera Rewrites HER/OUR Story

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“Writer Elizabeth Lesser asks “What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her?”

Flipping through the pages of your high school history textbook, how many stories are written about women as monumental protagonists? When was the last time you watched a movie that passed the Bechdel test? When was the last time there were more women than men on the Supreme Court voting on the right to our bodies? 

As brands of “faux” feminism partnered with consumerist culture push out media representing women’s liberation through a patriarchal gaze, how can we reclaim the visual language to share more authentic stories? How can our art share the stories of women, trans women, and non-binary folks written out of the history books? How does your work give voice to the overlooked and underrepresented? 

Hera Gallery presents 52 works that rewrite this cultural consciousness for a more inclusive human history.”

Please see the SHOW here!

I am honored to have two pieces in this salient year-long online exhibition, and participate in a small way, in Rewriting Her/Our/Their Story.

“White Zip”, 2020, 21.25″ x 20.5″ x .25″, canvas, acrylic paint, lace, zipper, hemp cord, linen thread, wood

“Into The Bush“, 2020, 11 x 19 x 7 , book board, canvas, sewing thread, acrylic paint

Please see the SHOW here!