Works by Deanna Sirlin
Deanna Sirlin is an American abstract artist best known for her gestural paintings and monumental installations. Her work prioritizes color. In her paintings, she explores how texture and composition affect color relationships. Through her installations, she dramatically alters physical environments, using color and light to challenge how viewers interact with space. She lives and works on a horse farm outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
Education
A native New Yorker, Sirlin began her art education at age six at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, now part of the Pratt Institute. She earned her B.A.in Art in 1978 from the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY), and her M.F.A. in Painting in 1980 from Queens College. Sirlin is a Yaddo Fellow, and in 2016 was the Rothko Foundation International Painting Symposium Artist in Residence.
Technique
Though primarily a painter, Sirlin adopts any medium that allows her to explore the relationships color has with form, composition and the physical environment. Her acrylic paintings exude a multitude of layers, building to vibrant, complex, textural surfaces. Her process sometimes involves manipulating the surface, allowing natural forces like gravity to affect the paint. Action is important to her mark making. Her brush is an extension of her body. The fluid brushstrokes are often the first elements of her paintings to catch the eye. Sirlin also works in collage and sculpture, creates public murals, writes extensively about art, and has adapted her imagery by using digital technology to create monumental works embedded in glass for windows, covering buildings in the United States, and Italy.
Inspiration
Sirlin has said, "I think in terms of color, density, and the movement of stroke and light." She endeavors to make work that reflects the way she likes to live. She infuses her work with a search for positivity and lust for life, and has described her paintings as having a particular "pleasure of being." She is inspired by opportunities to translate her work into new mediums and new environments. Her paintings helped inspire her large-scale installations. In turn, the ways light and space interplay with the work on those projects inspires the way she engages with paint. Digital technology also affects the way she approaches her work.
Artist statement
In an interview with Quanda Rodriguez for Catalyst magazine, Sirlin said, “For me, making art is a search for self. With each stroke, I am rediscovering, circling and re-articulating myself. I continually dig deeper...But, most of all, these works express for me the pleasure of being in the world. I am reinventing that happiness in the language of painting.
Exhibitions
Work by Deanna Sirlin has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, as well as in France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Turkey, Latvia and China.
Collections
Works by Sirlin are included in numerous institutional and private collections, including that of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, the Mark Rothko Centre in Daugavpils, Latvia, the Shenzhen Institute of Fine Arts in Shenzhen, China, Kunsthaus Nurnberg, Germany, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.
Solo Exhibitions
2018
Translucence, Gallery 72, Office of Cultural Affairs, City of Atlanta, GA
2015
Honeycomb, LaGrange Museum of Art, LaGrange, GA
2015
Upended, Neuer Worpsweder Kunstverein, Worpswede, Germany
2012
Emergency Orange, M55 Art, LIC, NY
2012
Under and Over, BOA gallery Atlanta, GA
2009
Everything is Optional, Whitespace, Atlanta, GA
2006
Circling. Centre for Recent Drawing, London, UK
2006
Red Eye Love, Plus Gallery, Denver CO
2006
Notes to Self, Ferst Center for the Arts, GA Tech, Atlanta GA
2005
It’s All In My Head, Hartsfield- Jackson International Airport, Atlanta GA
2005
Up to My Eyeballs Ty Stokes Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2004
Gestures, Antalya Cultur Centre, Antalya. Turkey
2004
New Work, Ty Stokes Gallery, Atlanta. GA
2003
New Work, Saltworks Gallery,Atlanta, GA
2002
The Arrangement of Things, Coach Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2001
Punto di Fuga [Vanishing Point], Universita Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice,
2000
After Painting, Laredo Center for the Arts, Laredo, TX
1999
Retracings, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
1999
Retracing Retracing , Resource Forum, Atlanta, GA
1999
Into the Blue, Solomon Projects, Atlanta, GA
1998
In Retrospect: Paintings From the Last Decade, Buckhead Plaza, Atlanta
1996
Quaternity, Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
1995
Forecasts, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Cheekwood Fine Arts Center, Nashville, TN
Hudgins Center, Duluth, GA
1994
Between Heaven and Earth, The Autrey Mill Project, Alpharetta, GA.
1993
Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1989
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
1988
Art Institute of Pittsburgh, PA
1987
Omni Gallery, Atlanta , GA
1987
Berry College, Rome, GA
1986
Philip Morris Gallery, Richmond, VA
1986
Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
1986
Double Gallery, Norfolk, VA
1985
Sarah Y. Rentschler Gallery, New York City
1985
Long Island University Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1983
Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY
1993
The Johnson Factory, Johnson City, NY
1982
Smedley’s Gallery, Ithaca, NY
1981
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Group Exhibitions
2017
Group Show, Ille Arts, Amagansett, New York
2017
Unanswered Letter with Lenka Clayton, Fabric Workshop And Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2016
Painting Symposium, Mark Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, Latvia
2016
Academy/Academia Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, Marietta, GA
2015
Rooted, Many Cantor Center, New York City, NY
2015
Selections from the Permanent Collection, MOCA GA, Atlanta, GA
2014
The New Museum, New York, NY. Draftsmen’s Congress. with Pawel Althamer
2013
kleineaberKunst, Neuer Worpsweder Kunstverein, Worpswede, Germany
2012
Billboard Project, Atlanta, GA
2011
C-Flow, Elevate Atlanta, Office of Cultural Affairs, Atlanta, GA
2011
Flux Projects, Atlanta, GA
2010
5 +15 + 5, Ateilerhaus Bahnhof Sagehorn, Oyten, Germany
2010
From Padies, Galerie 22, Toulouse, France
2009
Majestic Sunrise, The Rialto ,Atlanta, GA
2007
Genius Loci, Soranzo Cappello Palace, Venice, Italy
2007
Viva Frieda, Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2007
Drawings, City Gallery East , Atlanta, GA
2006
Color, Space 301 , Mobile, Alabama
2005
Drawing Conclusions, Rialto curated by Karen Comer Lowe , Atlanta
2004
Shenzhen Biennial, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, PR China
2004
Multiple Views, Madelyn Jordan Fine Arts, Scarsdale , NY
2002
Shenzhen Biennial, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, PR China
2002
Kunsthaus Invitational, Heidenheim, Germany
2001
New Orleans Triennial,Installation, New Orleans Museum of Art, LA
2000
Collaborating Couples, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
1997
Tragic Wake: The Legacy of Slavery and the African Diaspora in Contemporary American Art,
Spirit Square, Charlotte, NC
1996
Grace and Violence, Olympic Village, Atlanta, GA
1996
Gone With the Wind, Taboo, Chastain Gallery , City of Atlanta
1994
Kay Garvey Gallery, Chicago, IL
1994
Martha Keats Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1993
GreenSpace, Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA;
1992
Atlanta Biennial, Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta,
1988
Bowery Gallery, New York City
1987
Vistas:The Panoramic Landscape, GW Einstein Gallery, NYC, NY
1987
Landscape, 22 Wooster Street, New York City
1986
New York Artists Reynolds/Minor Gallery, Richmond, VA
1986
Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA (two-person)
1984
New Scapes: Land and City/States of Mind, One Penn Plaza, NYC
1980
Goldwin Ternback Museum, Flushing, Queens, NY