Throughout
my career, I have worked with a variety of materials and
processes in the development of multiple bodies of work,
including traditional drawing processes, hand cut collage,
digital collage, digital drawing, and Lazertran technology.
In considering these varied bodies of work, I ask myself
what it is that all my work has in common, what conceptual
threads run throughout my work?
I have always been interested in the origins of individual identity and it's
relationship to broader cultural and social identity. In the long-standing debate
over nature versus nurture, I embrace elements of both in considering the formation
of self-definition. While I assert that nature assigns certain fundamental attributes
through biological or genetic codes, nurture has the potential to either support
or subvert those attributes.
Far too many people in our world suffer, and this suffering often has its origins
in trans-generational neglect or abuse. Our wounded and scarred children, frequently
the product of damaged and wounded parents, become our damaged and wounded adults.
The wounded self is passed from one generation to the next in a seemingly endless
cycle of dysfunction and identity distortion. Our dysfunctional homes become
our dysfunctional schools become our dysfunctional churches become our dysfunctional
governments become our dysfunctional nations, and the cycle repeats itself. Beneath
the surface of appearances lies a culture increasingly immersed in complacency,
unearned privilege, self-interest, hypocrisy, bigotry, lack of compassion, intolerance
for difference, and thirst for power and control by the few over the many.
I am a cultural critic. In my work, I critique social, cultural, and political
practices and their inherent absurdities and contradictions. Through a variety
of sources, we are told how to look, what to feel, what to buy, what to believe,
whom to fear, whom to admire, whom to hate. We are barraged through mass media
with news, information, images, and advertisements. Juxtaposed and woven together
is the slaughter of innocent civilians with the season?s newest fashion trends;
the exploitation of laborers in underdeveloped countries with the stock market?s
gains and losses; the lack of accessible drugs for treating the Aids pandemic
with testimonials for Viagra; the starvation of displaced refugees with fast
food endorsements and ultimately distinctions between the benign and the malignant
are extinguished. Images that support the false notion that all is well are seamlessly
blended with images that reveal the truth of pain, suffering, loss, and alienation.
Ours is an experience of duality, of parallel worlds of truth and deception.
Extremes of beauty are not possible, cannot be fully comprehended, without extremes
of ugliness with which to compare them. Once compared, it is hard to untangle
the lovely from the disturbing.
born: 1954,
Fenton, Michigan
education
University
of Cincinnati, MFA in Drawing
Western Michigan University, BS
selected
awards/honors
Best of Show, 77th Regional Juried Art Exhibition,
Muskegon Museum of Art, 2005
2005 Solo Exhibition, Greater Michigan Art Exhibition,
Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art, 2004
Centennial Celebration's 100 Art Alumni Award,
School of Art, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo,
MI;
Recipient of award for distinguished actions and accomplishments
in the visual arts, 2003
Best of Show, 41st Annual Greater Michigan Art
Exhibition, Midland Center for the Arts, 2001
selected
publications
The Art of Teaching Art, book published by
Oxford University Press, New York, NY; released 2000; translated
into Chinese for release in China, February 2003
selected
solo or two-person exhibits
Drawn from Life: Works by Deborah Rockman,
Retrospective, Midland Museum of Art, Midland, MI,
2005
Losing Sleep, Urban Institute for Contemporary
Art, Grand Rapids, MI, 2004
Changing My Mind: A Retrospective, 20-Year Retrospective
Exhibition, Kendall College of Art, 2001
The Seduction of Shadow and Light, South Bend
Museum of Art, South Bend, IN, 1995
selected group shows
2006 Biennial: Contemporary American Realism,
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN, 2006
2006 Great Lakes Drawing Biennial, Ford Gallery,
Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, 2006
National Biennial 2004, Peninsula Fine Arts
Center, Newport News, VA (Award), 2004
Drawing From Perception, Juried Exhibition,
Wright State University Art Galleries, Dayton, OH,
2000
