Debra Disman

Artist

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EXHIBITIONISTA: “Cut/Fold/Press” at Craft Alliance!

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 I am  thrilled to participate in “Cut/Fold/Press” juried by artist and educator Buzz Spector at Craft Alliance showing “Burning Bush”


7.5 x 11 x 5.5″, board, mulberry paper, sewing thread, linen thread

“At times, paper is often thought as a vehicle for other artistic practices. This exhibit embraces the transformational quality of paper and the art created using paper as a primary material. Juried by Craft Alliance’s inaugural Visiting Artist, Buzz Spector, this exhibition brings together compelling work on a seemingly simple material and craft form. CUT/FOLD/PRESS asks paper artists to explore and consider the many forms that paper art takes—books, sculpture, and sheet. 

The exhibition presents artists who use paper as their primary medium or create artworks made on, of, or about paper including cut paper, folded paper, woven paper, glued paper, drawings, paintings, pastels, printmaking, photographs, paper sculpture, 3D, bound books, collage, or as the subject of a video and installation.”

Buzz Spector is an artist, writer and emeritus professor of art at Washington University in St. Louis. His academic career includes five years’ service as dean of the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts (2009–2013). Spector has also taught at Cornell University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a full professor and at numerous institutions as visiting or adjunct faculty.

Spector’s art practice makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object, and focuses on relationships between public history, individual memory and perception. He has had numerous exhibits in private and institutional galleries and museums in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and his solo or two-person museum exhibits have taken place at the Saint Louis Art Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and most recently, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL.

Spector has also published two books, Buzzwords (Sara Ranchouse Publishing, 2012) and The Book Maker’s Desire (Umbrella Editions, 1994). He has also written numerous exhibition catalog essays, including for exhibits by Luis Camnitzer, Ann Hamilton, Dan Ramirez and Dieter Roth.  Additionally, Spector received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Teaching of Art award in 2013.

 Craft Alliance is located in The Maker District of  St. Louis, is a hub for artists, enthusiasts, and students to explore, learn, and celebrate the world of contemporary craft. We offer studios for ceramics, print and paper arts, metals, fibers, glass, wood, an artists-in-residence program, robust community programs, and an exhibition program.

EXHIBITIONISTA: “Paper + Fiber” at 1202 Contemporary

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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.

Click HERE to view the show!

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

By

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)

 

“String Theory” plays at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod!

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I am thrilled to be participating in “String Theory“, an exhibition focusing on the versatility and creative potential of fiber, at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod.

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Opening Reception Friday, February 9, 5–7pm

Exploring the possibilities within fiber art to showcase the beauty and versatility of the medium.

FIBER ART can be see as both a new and an old form of art. The use of fibrous materials—woven, knitted, printed, wrapped, tied, sculpted, etc.—has long been a part of human culture. Traditionally, fibrous materials emerged as functional objects but in the aftermath of the World War II and with further investigation into the nature of an art object, fiber art slowly became a force and a movement in its own right. 

DURING THE 1950s, as artists received recognition, the term “fiber art” was coined to help describe and categorise their work. During this period, the contribution of craft artists—not just in fiber but in clay, ceramics, and other media—inspired a number of weavers to begin binding fibers into non-functional and non-objective forms to create works of art. The two decades that followed, the 1960s and the ’70s brought an international revolution in fiber art. With the rise of the women’s movement, and the consequences of feminist art, along with the birth of postmodernism theory, fiber art was reinforced and popularized.

FORMS OF FIBER ART include sewing, quilting, needle point, macrame, weaving, felting, crocheting, knitting, embroidery, rug-making, basket weaving and many more. As the years pass, different forms of fiber art have increased and decreased in popular artist interest. Macrame, for example, became very popular during the Victorian era, faded out of focus, then regained popularity in the 1970s. Today fiber art, in all its increasingly varied forms and styles, is more popular than ever and os one of the fastest-growing art forms of the 21st century.

The exhibition explores the wide range of possibilities within fiber art, including but not limited to weaving, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and felting. It will showcase the beauty and versatility of fiber as a medium.

I will be showing a work that has not yet been exhibited publicly: 

Blue Tapestry (Here’s To The Red, White + Blue), 2021, 18.75 x 6.5″
a hanging textile work made of hemp cord, linen thread and repurposed plastic placemat material.
This work is part of a three piece series, which also includes “Red Notebook” and “White Album”,  created in response to the re-evaluation of our national identity provoked by recent and historical events and conditions, and resulting turmoil.


VIEW THE SHOW VIDEO!