I am pleased to be included in the 40th Anniversary Virtual Exhibition of the Mary H Dana Women Artists Series by the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers University

Here is a link to the online catalog for the exhibition: Institute for Women and Art 40th Anniversary Exhibition

“In Other Words” is one of the pieces I exhibited as part of the Series at the Douglass Library on Rutgers campus.

A Dozen Days, wax on MDF board, 6 inches sq, 2012

Opening reception is April 19th, 6-8pm @ Blank Space, 511 W 25th St, Ste 204

I hope you can attend!

If you crave detail…here’s the press release:

For Immediate Release

Debra Ramsay: Desire Lines

April 19 – May 19, 2012

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 19, 6-8pm

BLANK SPACE is pleased to present Desire Lines, the second solo exhibition by Debra Ramsay with the gallery since 2009. Ramsay locates the foundation of her work in “primitive mathematics and spatial relationships. It’s an idiosyncratic engagement with a rule-based system to generate form, shape and coherence.” With Desire Lines, Ramsay reaffirms her commitment to drawing and painting within a reductive system, while allowing a level of uncertainty and unconventionality to inflect the mark making.

Desire Lines brings together bodies of work that represent Ramsay’s ongoing explorations of line, one of the most ancient and most powerful means of artistic expression. The term “Desire Lines” comes from landscape architecture, where it refers to the paths people create through an internal logic, an intuitive understanding of movement through space, ignoring — or even openly defying– the imposed directive of pavement and concrete. Web designers borrowed this term of real-world geography to describe the paths we create for ourselves to navigate the architecture of cyberspace: the search terms we enter on a website to find what we are looking for.

This interplay of the constructed and the intuitive informs Desire Lines. Starting within a predetermined system, Ramsay loosens control on the actual mark making, allowing the inherent properties and demands of the materials – molten, pigmented wax; fragments of eggshell; thread partially impressed into wax fields on handmade paper — to create their own desire lines. “I have only limited control when I break the eggshells, or pour the wax, or embed the thread. I direct the line up to a point, and then have to release it to go its own way.”

In the “Calculated Perceptions” series, Ramsay explores balance, both measured and perceived, between horizontal fields of graphite wax and eggshell on a single panel. As the divisions in each painting progress from none through variations on sixths, thirds, and halves, the sequence as a whole underscores the shifting sense of balance created by the placement and relative weight of the horizontal bands. A powerful sense of line emerges from the bands themselves and from the interaction between adjacent fields.

For the “Pouring Over Time” series, Ramsay developed a methodology based on a fixed linear constant: time. Each panel is divided into six columns, representing the two-digit numerals of the month, day, and year of the painting’s title. Those numbers determine the number of times a line of poured wax will start in that column. Although the date is thus formally encoded in the painting, and the starting point of each poured line retains the hard edge determined by the original division, Ramsay allows the effect of gravity on the molten wax to direct the quality of the line, and this new line creates its own representation of the time of its making.

In some pieces in this series, the dates themselves bear symbolic weight. In  “Gratitude for Agnes Martin,” the pink and gray palette of Martin’s “Gratitude,” reappears, here encoding the date of her birth in a similar pink and the date of her passing in a similar gray, all on a white ground.

Ramsay is a New York-based artist, educated at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Oregon State University. Her work has been featured in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including “Doppler Stop,” an exhibition currently traveling to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin and Zagreb; “Textility,” (for which she created two site-specific installations) with catalogue and essays by Joanne Mattera and Mary Birmingham; and an online exhibition through Rutgers: The IWA (Institute for Women and Art). Her work is part of public collections such as: Ritz-Carlton (Dubai), Alliance Bernstein (New York), 9/11 Memorial Museum (New York); and private collections in (among others) London, Seoul, Seattle, and Santa Fe.

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All are invited for a unique opportunity to discuss the Textility exhibition and artwork with the curators and artists. Textility is an exhibition that explores the inventive ways contemporary artists employ materials, concepts, and processes associated with textiles to convey their ideas.

Sunday, March 25th, 2 – 4 pm

Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

68 Elm Street

Summit, NJ 07901

www.artcenternj.org

Solo exhibition opening  April 19th @ Blank Space in Chelsea, NYC.

Please join me at the opening from 6-8 pm.

Exhibition runs from April 19 – May 19

Blank Space is located at 511 W 25th St, Suite 204

Telephone 212 – 924 – 2025

Hours Tuesday -  Saturday 10am – 6pm

Line is one of the most basic means of expression, and one of the most powerful.  Throughout the history of art, line has been used to explore and express feelings, thoughts and ideas.

The term “Desire Lines” comes from landscape architecture, where it refers to the paths people create in response to an intuitive, internal logic, in spite of the imposed directive of the paved sidewalk. Web designers borrowed this term of real-world geography to describe the paths we create for ourselves through the architecture of cyberspace: the search terms that we enter on a website to find what we are looking for.

I translate the idea of desire lines into my work by manipulating materials to make line in unconventional and unpredictable ways. I establish a predetermined system, then loosen controls on the actual mark making. In making line indirectly,  I consider the difference between a line deliberately made and a desire line that occurs when the materials themselves are allowed to play a role in how it is formed.

I’m pleased to be exhibiting the site specific installation “Object of the Shadow, In Half Twice” and a series of works of paper in this beautiful gallery space in the Jackson Arts Center.

Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery
Jackson Arts Center
Bristol Community College
777 Elsbree Street, Fall River, MA 02720
March 8 – April 1

Gallery Hours

Monday, Wednesday and Saturday 1-4pm

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10am – 1pm

For more information please call 508-678-2811 ext 2631

www.BristolCC.edu/gallery

For the “Pouring Over Time” series, I developed a methodology based on a fixed linear constant: time. Each panel is divided into six columns, representing the two-digit numerals of the month, day, and year of the painting’s title. Those numbers determine the number of times a line of poured wax will start in that column. Although the date is thus formally encoded in the painting, and the starting point of each poured line retains the hard edge determined by the original division, I allow the effect of gravity on the molten wax to direct the quality of the line, and this new line creates its own representation of the time of its making.

Installing artwork at Visual Arts Center of NJ

I’m excited to have two site-responsive installations included in this exhibition that was co-curated by Mary Birmingham and Joanne Mattera.

“The exhibition explores the inventive ways contemporary artists employ materials, concepts, and processes associated with textiles to convey their ideas.”

Opening: Friday, January 13th from 6-8pm

Walk and Talk: Sunday, March 25th from 2-4pm

See either link below for information on hours and directions.

A fully illustrated catalog is available.

The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey is the state’s largest institution dedicated exclusively to viewing, making, and learning about contemporary art. The Art Center is accredited by the American Association of Museums and welcomes over 60,000 visitors annually.

Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

Joanne Mattera Art Blog: Textility