Debra Disman

Artist

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Texture

Flag Books for Flag Day at the Manhattan Beach Library!

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It was a great pleasure to lead a Flag Bookmaking program  on Flag Day at the Manhattan Beach Library!


Due to a fabulous donation of designer wallpaper samples,


I was able to offer a mix of exotic materials to the participants to work with!
And they employed them…


in all kinds of different ways, making use of their colors, textures, patterns and imagery


to enhance  and enrich their books!

Different makers used the same pattern…

in different ways!


A wide variety of pre-cut “flag pages” were available and used creatively.


Maker Stacy Wong shared her completed Flag Book, which she further developed after the program!


A truly colorfully creative time was had by ALL!

 

Hopes and Fears and…

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From 2020 to the present moment.

I HOPE this is not forever, I FEAR it might be…but I HOPE not.
HOPE springs eternal, FEAR springs infernal.




Hopes and Fears and…, 2020, 24.5 x 16.25″, textile samples, linen thread

White & Texture & Paper & Fiber

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I am thrilled to be participating in two show on opposite coasts which aim to share artworks that center on some of my specific interest in artmaking.

“White & Texture” at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod:
“Subtitled Monochrome Unity, we invited artists to explore the profound subtleties and striking complexities of using white as the driving color and how texture within the white and informs the execution and the narrative of an artwork. We wanted them to explore the effect of this limitation – without a “conventional” color palette.”

“White Zip”

“Paper & Fiber: Fourth Annual Show” at 1202 Contemporary in Gilroy, California:
“1202 Contemporary proudly presents its 4th annual Paper + Fiber show, celebrating two mediums that women artists have traditionally used for centuries, but have always been considered “craft,” or less than fine art.  Uplifting and supporting artists who have worked in textile, fiber, and/or paper mediums, this exhibition centers and hones in on the theme of figure.”

“Into The Bush”

“Profusion”

“White and Texture (Monochrome Unity)” at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod

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I am thrilled to participate in  “White & Texture [Monochrome Unity]” at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod!
As they state:

“Artists were invited to explore the profound subtleties and striking complexities of using white as the driving color and how texture within the white can inform the execution and the narrative of an artwork, as well as to to explore the effect of this limitation – without a “conventional” color palette.

When the artist is freed from tradition, from expectation, and from the weight of history, there is an opportunity for release, exploration, and the unexpected. For White and Texture [Monochrome Unity], artworks were sought that find the emotion without using color. Uniformity, tranquility universality, simplicity, purity, or abstraction may all come to the surface and create a beautiful tension between what is missing – color, tradition, and form – and what is gained – innovation and the unexpected.

Our desire from the artist is not the search for simplicity but the discovery of a new way of creating and a different way of expression. We hope Monochrome Unity will drive the artist to look for new solutions to an artistic challenge; to use shades of white and embrace texture to provide the ‘color’ that will then provide the energy and emotion.

The work of such artists as Michael Buthe, Piero Manzoni, Joan Nixon, and ceramic sculptor Maria Barttuszova provide us with a broad template of the experience to create in the Cultural Center.

White & Texture [Monochrome Unity] will fill our galleries, creating a visual harmony and coherence and like never before, give a visitor experience like no other.”

I hope so.

I am showing WHITE ZIP, and look forward to seeing what others present for this unique show. I know i, for one, will be highly engaged.

21.25″ x 20.5″ x .25″, canvas, acrylic paint, lace, zipper, hemp cord, linen thread, wood

EXHIBITIONISTA: “White and Texture (Monochrome Unity)” at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod

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I am thrilled to participate in  “White & Texture [Monochrome Unity]” at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod!

As the call stated:

“Artists were invited to explore the profound subtleties and striking complexities of using white as the driving color and how texture within the white and informs the execution and the narrative of an artwork, as well as to to explore the effect of this limitation – without a “conventional” color palette.

When the artist is freed from tradition, from expectation, and from the weight of history, there is an opportunity for release, exploration, and the unexpected. For White and Texture [Monochrome Unity], artworks were sought that find the emotion without using color. Uniformity, tranquility universality, simplicity, purity, or abstraction may all come to the surface and create a beautiful tension between what is missing – color, tradition, and form – and what is gained – innovation and the unexpected.

Our desire from the artist is not the search for simplicity but the discovery of a new way of creating and a different way of expression. We hope Monochrome Unity will drive the artist to look for new solutions to an artistic challenge; to use shades of white and embrace texture to provide the ‘color’ that will then provide the energy and emotion.

Using the work of such artists as Michael Buthe, Piero Manzoni, Joan Nixon, and ceramic sculptor Maria Barttuszova provide us with a broad template of the experience to create in the Cultural Center.

White & Texture [Monochrome Unity] will fill our galleries, creating a visual harmony and coherence and like never before, give a visitor experience like no other.”

I am showing WHITE ZIP
21.25″ x 20.5″ x .25″, canvas, acrylic paint, lace, zipper, hemp cord, linen thread, wood

(detail)

 

CONCURRENCIES: Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse: The Visitors

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On June 25th, 2022 I held an open studio to share works created for my 2021-22 Santa Monica Artist Project Fellowship:

Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse: Genius, Trauma and the Invention of New Forms of Visual Art in Response to the Holocaust

Employing research, artistic production, public engagement, the project investigates, compares and links the lives and the groundbreaking work of Jewish women artists Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse on the basis of their shared experience of trauma and loss through the Jewish Holocaust, the remarkably similar intimate traumas of their families (both lost their mothers to suicide), their invention of new forms of visual art through which I posit they respond to and attempt to cope with these traumas,  their early deaths, and the emotional involvement of each with a charismatic and powerful male artist who proved to be influential, even pivotal in the development of their work and artistic/creative breakthroughs.

Themes of the project include being a woman artist, being a Jewish women artist, being an artist during or affected by a profoundly turbulent time in history, the relationship between internal and external turbulence and the creative act and the transformative power of the creative process:  the triumph of the imagination as opposed to the triumph of the will.

On a broader scale, the project examines, through these two geniuses, ways in which the creative process can transform traumatic pasts, and how trauma can elicit the creation of new forms, voices and materials that outlast their makers and continue to reverberate throughout the ages, inspiring posterity.

As part of my Fellowship project commitment, I created a series of works responding to these artists: their oeuvre, their lives, their concurrencies. I was thrilled to welcome friends, colleagues and students to share the works and say hello!  (All images by Steve Hankins Photography)

 




Thank you all, and thank you Steve Hankins, for your beautiful photography and capturing of the event.