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Painter exploring landscape, ecology, and displacement
2024 — This Bitter Earth, Kuma Lisa Gallery, New York (solo exhibition)
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
The quote by Agnès Varda “If we opened people up, we'd find landscapes [...]"¹ beautifully sums up Wasserman’s visceral approach to this body of work. The genre of landscape painting allows her to look inward by making her personal story a universal one about one’s search for identity, belonging, and a home away from one’s native places.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
In Wasserman’s view, which is aligned with the ecofeminist movement, patriarchal forces oppress nature and women alike, destroy natural resource for quick profits, and are careless about future generations. As a mother of daughters, Wasserman’s connection to this concept is personal and deeply felt.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Migrating Crops, 2021, shows a ghostly figure that appears behind a row of crops, some dried up and shriveled. Here Wasserman brings up the themes of climate migration and dispossession. We are reminded of how indigenous populations had their culture and habituation destroyed by excessive heat and drought.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Wasserman’s creative process is spontaneous and visceral. Her practice centers around multiple stages of layering and erasing, slowly letting the painting reveal itself. Oil paint is dripped, poured, scratched, wiped away, and applied again. Every inch of the canvas is carefully developed, its parts as equally great as the whole. The artist also uses torn rags and clothes, which she paints after attaching them to the canvas – an intentional reference to her process and to the toil of women’s lives and labor.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
The quote by Agnès Varda “If we opened people up, we'd find landscapes [...]"¹ beautifully sums up Wasserman’s visceral approach to this body of work. The genre of landscape painting allows her to look inward by making her personal story a universal one about one’s search for identity, belonging, and a home away from one’s native places.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Wasserman conjures up sweeping landscapes that echo her desire to find solace and deepen her roots in an imaginary native land
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Creatures of the Light, 2021, in a nod to magical realism, shows a body of water with floating lily pads. The two hands that rise from the water signal a cry for salvation and protection, while the eyes gazing beneath the water represent the inherent consciousness of water, perhaps seeing ”eye to eye” with Mother Nature.
Deluge (1), 2019
Acrylic, oil, and torn cloth
on canvas , 48 x 48 in
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Installation view of Deborah Wasserman's recent solo show at Kuma Lisa gallery
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Every inch of the canvas is carefully developed, its parts as equally great as the whole. The artist also uses torn rags and clothes, which she paints after attaching them to the canvas – an intentional reference to her process and to the toil of women’s lives and labor.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Wasserman is a nomad, a traveler, and a seeker at heart. Her landscapes are hybrids - melanges of real and imagined places that reflect her personal and collective histories.
Like Fire On Water, 2024
Acrylic and oil on panel
11 x 14 in
Terra Mater, 2019
Acrylic, oil, and Torn clothes on canvas, 48 x 48 in.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
In Wasserman’s view, which is aligned with the ecofeminist movement, patriarchal forces oppress nature and women alike, destroy natural resource for quick profits, and are careless about future generations. As a mother of daughters, Wasserman’s connection to this concept is personal and deeply felt.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Every inch of the canvas is carefully developed, its parts as equally great as the whole. The artist also uses torn rags and clothes, which she paints after attaching them to the canvas – an intentional reference to her process and to the toil of women’s lives and labor.
This Bitter Earth, 2023
Acrylic, oil, and torn clothes on canvas, 48 x 72 in.
This Bitter Earth , 2023, depicts a land with scorched mountains, flooded valleys, fires, and rings of smoke. Its skewed perspective, fractured horizons, and sunken terrains evoke our global collapse.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
Wasserman later moved to the United States as a young adult, eventually settling in the New York City borough of Queens. Wasserman is a nomad, a traveler, and a seeker at heart. Her landscapes are hybrids - melanges of real and imagined places that reflect her personal and collective histories.
This Bitter Earth, 2024, installation view,
Kuma Lisa Gallery
In Wasserman’s view, which is aligned with the ecofeminist movement, patriarchal forces oppress nature and women alike, destroy natural resource for quick profits, and are careless about future generations. As a mother of daughters, Wasserman’s connection to this concept is personal and deeply felt.
Photo credits: Alessandro “Fresco” Cerdas and Max Yawney
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