ERICA DEEMAN: Familiar Stranger
25 August – 2 October 2020
Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by San Francisco-based artist Erica Deeman. In her second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Familiar Stranger, Deeman turns the camera on herself for the first time, 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.
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To protect our visitors and staff, and to mitigate exposure to COVID-19, face coverings are required for entry and must be worn at all times. Masks and hand sanitizer will be offered at the door and we ask that social distancing be observed throughout the gallery. The exhibition is open by appointment only; please contact the gallery to make an appointment.
"The works of Familiar Stranger begin as black-and-white photographic self-portraits which Deeman then prints as molds via a 3D printer. Cassius Obsidian clay is then pressed into the molds, left to dry for a week, and then fired twice. In the first firing the clay shrinks, cracks, becomes at once volatile and delicate. It is only in the second firing that the pieces take on their ebony veneer. It is significant that though of the earth, Deeman has chosen a human-made clay, mixed in her adopted home of California, a material suited to the artist’s exploration of the roots and routes of her own diasporic identity. "
- Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley
"The camera may not always render you in the manner that you see yourself, and that’s okay; it can only allude to the complexity of existence and being."
- Erica Deeman in conversation with Essence Harden, independent curator, arts writer, and PhD. Candidate, University of California at Berkeley
"Identity, as Black British cultural theorist Stuart Hall tells us, is always a process of becoming, never a final arrival. And indeed photography often fails when it is understood as confirmation of fixed (and often fictitious) truths. But when understood as a way of encountering the world and oneself in it, photography can be a site of new knowledge and infinite possibility. The process that Deeman has developed for Familiar Stranger (which takes its name from the title of Hall’s posthumously published memoir), reveals the terrains upon and through which her diasporic identity is forged, landscapes always latent in the photograph."
- Leigh Raiford
"We never really arrive at who we are, we are in this continual state of becoming. I think a lot about my grandparents and my mum moving to the U.K. from Jamaica and the experiences they faced. They thrived and found joy in what I know was a difficult transition for them. They made a journey, physical and through time to a different identity. They are very much of Hall’s writings. As a first-generation, dual heritage, Black British person I have chosen to move and live in an alternative land to my birth. There have definitely been complex problems of identity through this movement yet it’s given rise to creative possibilities. There’s definitely a parallel in our family experiences."
- Erica Deeman in conversation with Essence Harden
"From a distance, they appear to be abstractly textured ceramic shards, but upon closer inspection, Deeman’s own face comes into view. The striations of her skin and, the topography of her hair, combine to reveal an intimate geography of Black womanhood."
- Leigh Raiford
"The Cassius Obsidian clay acts as a unifier between my body and the land. Through the visible imprint/reliefs made, there’s a different type of permanence to the light-exposed paper, the laying of ink on paper, and the digital world. I was drawn to it thinking about the museum, the artifact, the Black body, and permanence. As a culture I ask, what will we leave to be remembered by? It was something that struck me as I stood in front of the items I photographed for the 1619 Project (New York Times). In the history of the Black diaspora that we share, we find remnants of ourselves, an historical presence."
- Erica Deeman in conversation with Essence Harden
"Through placing the photograph into a larger set of questions about history and hapticality, Familiar Stranger responds to and attempts to resolve these conundra. Deeman calls these works sculptures, but I prefer to think of them instead as ceramics, objects that have everyday use. As fragments they function as inventories, archeologies of the self; they move us from the archival to the archeological, from the time of photography to geologic time. They insist that the terms of belonging can be found simultaneously across time, place and medium."
- Leigh Raiford
"I love that idea of the photograph as an unreliable narrator, like a memory that you recall over time, never consistent, moving and changing in interpretation, like how we interpret our lives to our inner selves."
- Erica Deeman in conversation with Essence Harden
Photograph by Robert Alleyne, San Francisco
Erica Deeman (b. 1977) lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Deeman received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Public Relations, degree in 2000 from Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, a degree in 2014 from Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA.
Deeman is the recipient of 2019 Headlands Center for the Arts Residency, Sausalito, CA; a 2016 TOSA Award Finalist; the 2015 ProArts 2 x 2 Solos 2015: Emerging Artists; and the 2015 Working Artists Grant.
Deeman has had solo exhibitions at Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Archive, Berkeley, CA; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA, and Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, NY; Domestic and international group exhibitions include Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, UK; The Hive, Worcester, Worcestershire, UK; Municipal Gallery, Library and Cultural Centre, Dublin, Ireland; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Old Truman Brewery, London, UK; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA; and SF Cameraworks, San Francisco, CA; and University of Derby, Derbyshire, UK.
Permanent collections include Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, FL; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; and Pilara Foundation Collection, San Francisco, CA.
