Erica Deeman: Familiar Stranger

From the gallery press release:

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.

“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