Erica Deeman: Familiar Stranger
Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by San Francisco-based artist Erica Deeman (b. 1977, Nottingham, UK). In her second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Familiar Stranger (a reference to Stuart Hall鈥檚 Autobiography, Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands), Deeman forges a pathway between photography and sculpture, sharing 15 intimate self-portraits rendered in Cassius Obsidian clay. In this new series, Deeman continues her reflections on diasporic and transnational movements, Black permanence and the nuance of cultural identity.
In Familiar Stranger, Deeman turns the camera on herself for the first time creating portraits and processes that explore transfiguration and the overlapping and fluidity of identity. Black and white photographs are rendered into unique, abstracted, hand-made self-portraits in clay with the aid of 3D-printing techniques. For Deeman, the clay not only represents the land but a sense of belonging. The black clay sculptures reflect back contrast and detail in its darkness - a visible tension between time, technology, and the creative technique.
Deeman began refining this new process while in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2019. During this same period, she was commissioned by The New York Times to document artifacts from the Smithsonian鈥檚 National Museum of African American History and Culture for the 1619 Project, deeply impacting her view of the artifact, and the fraught relationship between past and contemporary depictions and ownership.
Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by San Francisco-based artist Erica Deeman (b. 1977, Nottingham, UK). In her second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Familiar Stranger (a reference to Stuart Hall鈥檚 Autobiography, Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands), Deeman forges a pathway between photography and sculpture, sharing 15 intimate self-portraits rendered in Cassius Obsidian clay. In this new series, Deeman continues her reflections on diasporic and transnational movements, Black permanence and the nuance of cultural identity.
In Familiar Stranger, Deeman turns the camera on herself for the first time creating portraits and processes that explore transfiguration and the overlapping and fluidity of identity. Black and white photographs are rendered into unique, abstracted, hand-made self-portraits in clay with the aid of 3D-printing techniques. For Deeman, the clay not only represents the land but a sense of belonging. The black clay sculptures reflect back contrast and detail in its darkness - a visible tension between time, technology, and the creative technique.
Deeman began refining this new process while in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2019. During this same period, she was commissioned by The New York Times to document artifacts from the Smithsonian鈥檚 National Museum of African American History and Culture for the 1619 Project, deeply impacting her view of the artifact, and the fraught relationship between past and contemporary depictions and ownership.
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