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Deborah Thomas
| 1984-85 | Studies | Art Students League, New York, New York | | 1980-84 | Studies | Atelier Jeanine Falk-Vairant, Geneva, Switzerland | | 1975-86 | PhD Studies | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia | | 1975 | MA | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia | | 1973 | BA | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor |
In my installations I enjoy experimenting in both conceptual and material dimensions while working with themes such as family and the remembered past, or local landscape and the environment. I create each piece by juxtaposing photographic images that resonate intimately for me (either my own or found photos) with familiar domestic objects (a shower curtain or diapers, for example), also including layers of word play and metaphorical suggestion. Each piece is grounded in personal, lived experience –- retrieved from memory and/or presented to engage the viewer intimately or familiarly.
After collecting images and materials, I create formal groupings according to patterns and repetitions only marginally related to any information that might intrinsically be conveyed. Although the contents of each installation are overwhelmingly personal, domestic and/or local, my goal in the artistic process is to bring the viewer with me as I shift the emphasis away from subjective content or affect to a more suggestive and universal zone of perception, which is neither purely representational nor non-representational.
Deborah Thomas currently lives in Los Angeles, but she has also lived and worked in New York; Geneva, Switzerland; and Philadelphia. She began her fine art studies in Geneva with Jeanine Falk-Vairant and subsequently studied painting with Richard Pousette-Dart at the Art Students League. She earned a B.A. with honors and distinction from the University of Michigan and also received an M.A. and pursued work toward a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to seeing her own conceptual installations and nonrepresentational paintings exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries and non-profit venues, Thomas has recently curated two exhibitions titled Intimate Geography: Getting To Know a Place and Estate of Mind featuring conceptual installations. She has also mounted a solo installation project, Christmas Past at Future, featuring vintage Christmas cards.
Thomas currently teaches art history at Glendale College, serves on the Board of the Arroyo Arts Collective and is a member of the EcoArtLA group sponsored by SCWCA. She has taught at Vassar College and at the Universities of Geneva and Bern in Switzerland. While in Philadelphia, she worked as the curator of a private collection of American fine and decorative art. She has published articles and lectured on various topics in art and art history, including landscape and abstraction.
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