Debra Disman

Artist

Collaboration

ALL MEDIA 2022

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All Media 2022

Exhibition: July 9–October 8

The Irvine Fine Arts Center is proud to announce the opening of All Media 2022, an exhibition featuring 56 local and regional artists whose artworks engage historic and contemporaneous themes. The exhibition will be on view July 9–October 8, with a free opening reception scheduled for Saturday, July 9, 2–4 p.m.

Works selected for this year’s All Media exhibition span painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, fiber, video, and mixed media. Awards were announced at the opening reception for three outstanding artworks and three honorable mentions, all of which were chosen by guest juror Joseph Daniel Valencia.

Exhibiting artists: Luciana Abait and Debra Disman, Eslam Abdelrahman, Debbie Abrames, Estefania Ajcip, Mary Allan, Stephen Anderson, Sheryl Ball, Ryan Bautista, Scout Bender, Danielle Bewer, Barbara Boissevain, Rachel Bunteman, Ruben Cantoran, Dennis Carrie, Michael Chesler, Ashoke Chhabra, Kat De Guzman, Jorg Dubin, Roland Escalona, Dede Lucia Falcone, Silvia Faris, Richard Ferncase, Karen Fiorito, John Flores, Gabriel Gonzalez, Audrey Hernandez Peterson, Gina Herrera, Lua Kobayashi, Joe Lee, Michael Lopez, Kiara Aileen Machado, Kai Mao, Tamara Martin, Jared Millar, Dorsadaf Moinzad, Skip Mueller, Melody Nunez, Francisco Palomares, Sho Peng, Gianni Pham, Alkaid Ramirez, May Roded, Isabella Salvatierra, Deanna Sanches da Silva, Chanchala Singh, Meriel Stern, Todd Swart, Hedy Torres, Noriho Uriu, Michael Usher, Kurt Theodore Weston, John White, Michael Wicks, and Rob Williams.

Guest juror Joseph Daniel Valencia is the associate curator of the Vincent Price Art Museum. In addition to his work as a historian, writer, and curator, Valencia has previously worked for the City of Irvine, as well as the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, and UCR ARTSblock.

“drift”, a collaborative work created by myself and artist Luciana Abait is included in the exhibition!

“drift” over to the Brand

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I am thrilled to participate in the exhibition
Brand 49 Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper,

September 11 – October 30, 2021, showing a  collaborative artist book work created with contemporary  artist Luciana Abait, entitled, “drift“. The piece highlights the effect humans are having on our precious and fragile environment, specifically, the melting of the polar icecaps in Antarctica. 

Juror of Brand 49 is  Marvella Muro, Director of Artistic Programs and Education at Self Help Graphics and Art (SHG) in Los Angeles. From it’s inception in 1973, Self Help Graphics has been nationally known for functioning at the intersection of the arts and social justice. Providing a home that fosters the creativity and development of local artists, it is the pre-eminent center for Latinx printmaking and a resource for young and emerging artists.

Brand 49 is organized by the Associates of Brand Library & Art Center, an all volunteer non-profit that raises funds to support the extensive free and public events at Brand including gallery exhibitions, classical and popular music performances, film screenings, dance performances, and activities for people of all ages.

See a video of

Watch a video of “drift” and see it in detail, then visit it, and see all the wonderful works employing paper at:

The Brand Library and Art Center
1601 West Mountain Street
Glendale, CA 91201 United States + Google Map
Phone: (818) 548-2051
Website: https://www.brandlibrary.org/


Thank you for stopping by, we hope seeing “drift” inspired thought, consideration and contemplation. Enjoy the show!

Story Time

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Story Time: BedTime Story I

I am repeating a bit in this post, lingering in my Studio Residency and show of work at Camera Obscura Art Lab at 1450 Ocean in Santa Monica.

I showed a work titled “BedTime Story I“, featuring, or shall I say employing tiny masks; faces of clay, made by my Mother, the ceramicist  Judy Disman.

My Mom had made these tiny faces of clay expressly for me to use in and on my artists’ books, even making tiny holes in them so they could be sewed  into and onto the book structures and become integral to them.

The faces were a natural for a piece about “bed”,  and made the book into a more literal narrative then I had originally intended. I work fairly abstractly, though still in a loose book format, and the addition of representational elements changed the feeling of the piece. It could then be “read” more literally.

The faces even became interactive, with two of them contemplating each other.

Others became sentinels, gazing benevolently out from their “beds”.

Far from creating an image of sleep, the faces express the experience of being wide awake, perhaps listening to, creating, or becoming a story. A bed time story.

The faces become the actors in the story, played out through the pages of the book. Each viewer will read the story in their own way, and reach their own conclusions about it.

We may wonder what the beings or characters expressed or indicated by the faces are thinking, and if they are having sleepless nights. Perhaps they are worried under their smiling visages. Perhaps they are presenting to us a mask, and there are dreams and roiling emotions, even nightmares, underneath.

Perhaps formal, textural,  decorative, haptic or totemic qualities of the work will prevail for some. In any event, BedTime Story I was a pleasure to make.

Again, Mom, thank you for the collaboration, and for creating these tiny pieces for me.
It was great to work with you. Sweet dreams.