Debra Disman

Artist

EXHBITION

“MOSTLY MONOCHROME” from WoArt!

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I have been thrilled to be included in the exhibition, Mostly Monochrome, presented online by the loved and respected  WoArt Blog, and curated by WoArtBlog founder,  Christina Massey, offering a strong platform for Women Artists.

November 1 – 30th, 2021

www.woartblog.com.

“Mostly Monochrome” is an online exhibition featuring artists using a mostly monochromatic approach to the creation of their work. Artworks with the reduced variant of color grab their viewers attention instead through their process, materials, composition and tonality.

As one scrolls through the exhibition, you’ll be visually transitioning through subtle shifts in the monochromatic palette and visually stimulated through the juxtaposition of works from minimal color field paintings to extremely detailed and laborious drawings and sculptures.

Viewers are invited to scroll through the wide range of artistic styles and explore the work in the virtual gallery slideshow. Click on the images to get further details and make any purchases of Artworks.

Support the work of Women Artists, shop the online store!

Featuring Artists:

Laura Ahola-Young, Lois Bender, Laurey Bennett-Levy, Angelica Bergamini, Carol Bouyoucos, Clare Burson, Ai Campbell, Jaynie Crimmins, Marianne DeAngelis, Debra Disman, Pauline Galiana, Veronika Golova, Carolynn Haydu, Erin Juliana, Rachel Kohn, Parvathi Kumar, Barbara Laube, Bonny Leibowitz, Seren Morey, Jane Nodine, Judith Ornstein, Dara Oshin, Barbara Owen, Lily Prince, Eve Provost Chartrand, Robin Roi, Andra Samelson, Amy Sands, Mary Shah, Barbara Sherman, Christina Smith, Lauren Smith, Judi Tavill, Jessica Tawczynski, Shira Toren, Ellen Weider, Odeta Xheka, Emna Zghal, Tamar Zinn

I am honored to have two works presented in the show, “Before the Fall”, and “Profusion”, pictured below.

Hear our discussion on Clubhouse!
Artists Who AND…, ”Artists…giving back to the creative community”:  Debra Disman/Lois Bender/Laurey Bender-Levy, Clubhouse, November 17, 2021

Insight into Insight

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The Cape Cod Museum of Art presents:  INSIGHT.

“When spoken, this word can be broadly understood as – Insight, In Sight and Incite. What is Your interpretation?”
I am thrilled to be part of this evocative exhibition, taking place in CCMA’s expansive Hope / McClennen exhibition hall. The show is available virtually on the Museum website .

I thank Mark Chester of  Mark Chester Photography and fellow exhibitor in the show (please see his marvelous, iconic portrait image introducing the exhibition) for gifting me with photos of my work MAXIMUM SECURITY (15 x 18 x 10.25″, mixed media (book board, canvas, watercolor paper, acrylic paint, hemp cord, wood) in the show.

 All of the following photographs are by Mark Chester of  Mark Chester Photography.
Thank you Mark for sharing my work.  I am honored to share yours!

 

The juror is Grace Hopkins, gallery director at the Berta Walker Galleries in Provincetown, and Wellfleet, MA,  and an international guidance counselor for the arts. In a 2014 review of her own artwork in The Banner, Susan Rand Brown called Hopkins: “A photographer with the eye and soul of a painter,” and said “The images she shoots suggest the sharply angled details of a Franz Kline, geometric shapes and flat colors of her father (Budd Hopkins) or a sudden burst of translucent layers, which could have been – but definitely are not – details from a collage by Robert Motherwell. Suddenly a viewer feels surrounded by the freshness of expressionist imagery and motion, each piece different, each piece allusive yet quite original.”

523 artworks were submitted by 272 artists from 30 states across the country for INSIGHT. Only 65 artworks have been selected from 60 artists in 16 states.

Says Grace Hopkins of selecting the work for this show: 
“Narrowing down the artwork for this exhibition was challenging. I first had to digest all 500+ submissions as a whole before any threads of meaning could be drawn between the works, and a final cohesive subset could be chosen. As a gallery director I am regularly confronted with an aesthetic puzzle. But, when you throw in the added thematic complexity of INSIGHT and the sheer number of works submitted, making a final selection was both a demanding and rewarding exercise in distillation. I want to thank everyone who came forward and placed their artwork into this pool. Another juror, with different values and sensibilities would have solved this very differently. Your collective vision, ability and insight moved me.”

INSIGHT runs through June 20, 2021

20×20 INSIGHT

By

The Cape Cod Museum of Art presents:  INSIGHT.

When spoken, this word can be broadly understood as – Insight, In Sight and Incite. What is Your interpretation?
I am thrilled to be part of this evocative exhibition, taking place in CCMA’s expansive Hope / McClennen exhibition hall. The show is available virtually on the Museum website.

The juror is Grace Hopkins, gallery director at the Berta Walker Galleries in Provincetown, and Wellfleet, MA,  and an international guidance counselor for the arts. In a 2014 review of her own artwork in The Banner, Susan Rand Brown called Hopkins: “A photographer with the eye and soul of a painter,” and said “The images she shoots suggest the sharply angled details of a Franz Kline, geometric shapes and flat colors of her father (Budd Hopkins) or a sudden burst of translucent layers, which could have been – but definitely are not – details from a collage by Robert Motherwell. Suddenly a viewer feels surrounded by the freshness of expressionist imagery and motion, each piece different, each piece allusive yet quite original.”

523 artworks were submitted by 272 artists from 30 states across the country for INSIGHT. Only 65 artworks have been selected from 60 artists in 16 states.

Says Grace Hopkins of selecting the work for this show: 
“Narrowing down the artwork for this exhibition was challenging. I first had to digest all 500+ submissions as a whole before any threads of meaning could be drawn between the works, and a final cohesive subset could be chosen. As a gallery director I am regularly confronted with an aesthetic puzzle. But, when you throw in the added thematic complexity of INSIGHT and the sheer number of works submitted, making a final selection was both a demanding and rewarding exercise in distillation. I want to thank everyone who came forward and placed their artwork into this pool. Another juror, with different values and sensibilities would have solved this very differently. Your collective vision, ability and insight moved me.”

I am showing MAXIMUM SECURITY:  15 x 18 x 10.25″, mixed media (book board, canvas, watercolor paper, acrylic paint, hemp cord, wood)

This show is sure to be InSIGHTful….Looking Forward!

“Drawing Connections” draws to a close

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The exhibition, “Drawing Connections” February 10, 2020 – August 7, 2020 at the 18th Street Arts Center (Airport Campus has drawn (pun intended) to a close. But it lives on in documentation, the video of the show below, the  works of the artists who participated, and the words of those who organized and responded to it.

It has been a joy to participate!

Thank you curator Frida Cano, and the incomparable 18th Street Arts Center!

See the show!

“Drawing Connections aims to trace the invisible networks between a selection of current artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, both from our 18th Street campus and our Airport hangar. The show highlights how artists from different backgrounds and whose practices range from traditional to experimental art can dialogue through one of the earliest and most fundamental tools for human expression, drawing. This process of mark-making reveals the initial creative impulse that may later take the form of a video, a performance, a piece of music, an art installation, a painting, or a drawing itself. This curatorial exercise intends to delve into the essence of the multivalent creative practices of the artistic community of 18th Street Arts Center.”

Art historian Susan Power writes:

“Defined in art historical terms by its materials— works on paper in pencil, charcoal, chalk, ink, watercolor, and so on—drawing encompasses a broad spectrum of human activity across time and culture. Ubiquitous and perennial, drawing crosses the boundaries delimiting disciplines and geographies. Drawing connects us over the ages to our earliest human ancestors and our childhood selves. Even the etymology of the word, related to the verb “to draw” and deriving from Old English “to pull,” can have a plethora of meanings—drawing arms and drawing blood are two, which tragically jump to mind during these incredibly challenging times. Within the context of our current crises, the very premise of the 18th Street Art Center exhibition “Drawing Connections” takes on unanticipated significance, as do so many other activities often take for granted in our daily lives. 

The first open-call cross-campus exhibition since 18th Street Art Center expanded its residency program to the Santa Monica Airport locale in 2019, “Drawing Connections” sought (seeks?) not only to showcase the fertile dialogues between work by all their artists in residence, whose practices cover a myriad of approaches, but also to encourage encounters and conversations among the artists and outside communities. Occupying the two wide corridors running the length of the former airplane hangar, the exhibition space invites circulation and exchange, luring artists out of their adjacent studios to mingle with fellow artists, art world professionals and enthusiasts, friends, neighbors and visitors from afar. But the ways we now connect have also undergone a radical shift with the existential threat of the pandemic. The participatory, experiential dimension of “Drawing Connections” was thus short-lived due to the sheltering-at-home orders in effect since mid-March.

The practice of drawing involves making connections—between the physical and the mental, hand or body and mind, concept and form, observation and imagination, perception and thought, interior and exterior. Reflecting on the conceptual underpinnings of the show, the exhibiting artists contributed work that engages with the medium in all its diversity, representing an astounding array of concerns. Together, the multi-generational group of twenty-five artists offers a remarkable cross-section of approaches running the gamut from traditional to experimental, from intimate and personal to interactive and collective. Together, the artworks converse across materials and techniques, complicating any notion of media-specificity, exploding any sense of unity inherent to drawing, and opening it up to endless possibility.”

Featured artists: Deborah Lynn Irmas, Dan S. Wang, Luciana Abait, Debra Disman, Judith Gandel-Golden, Gwen Samuels, Luigia Gio Martelloni, Julia Michelle Dawson, Lola del Fresno, Loren H. Harris-Heller, Joan Wulf, Doni Silver Simons, Pamela Simon-Jensen, Crystal Michaelson, Daniela Schweitzer, M Susan Broussard, Yvette Gellis, Encounter, Rebecca Youssef, Alexandra Dillon, Melinda Smith Altshuler, Nellie King Solomon,  Rebecca Setareh, Ameeta Nanji, and Claudia Concha.

Exhbitionista: “Drawing Connections” at 18th Street Arts Center

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DRAWING CONNECTIONS:

Tour the Show!

It has been an honor to participate in “Drawing Connections” held at the Airport Campus of 18th Street Art Center
in the North and South Galleries | 3026 Airport Avenue
February 10 – May 1, 2020


 

“Drawing Connections aims to trace the invisible networks between a selection of current artists in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, both from our 18th Street campus and our Airport hangar. The show highlights how artists from different backgrounds and whose practices range from traditional to experimental art can dialogue through one of the earliest and most fundamental tools for human expression, drawing. This process of mark-making reveals the initial creative impulse that may later take the form of a video, a performance, a piece of music, an art installation, a painting, or a drawing itself. This curatorial exercise intends to delve into the essence of the multivalent creative practices of the artistic community of 18th Street Arts Center.”

See the show!

Two of my works are included. Due to size and camera (cell) restrictions, it was challenging to get images, but here are a few…

There will be an virtual tour coming up in the near future, so please, stay tuned!

“Offal” is not so Awful

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I am thrilled to be included in the current exhibition at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, OFFAL

Thank you Steven Wong, Curator, for putting this together.

Thank you Brianna Bakke, Assistant Curator, for your writing.

And, thank you to the whole curatorial and installation staff and any volunteers, for creating such a beautiful, immersive display of all the works.  “Throes of the Body” has never been lit like this before, and it made all the difference.

The detail of the piece could really be seen,

and made accessible to the viewers.

Gratitudes!