Media Contact:
Maryl Fleisher, Marketing Manager
Glendale Library, Arts & Culture
222 East Harvard Street, Glendale CA 91205
(818) 937-7806 / mfleisher@glendaleca.gov
Debra Disman: I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do
January 28 – March 19, 2023
GLENDALE, CA - Glendale Library, Arts & Culture, and ReflectSpace Gallery are proud to present I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do, a solo exhibition featuring Los Angeles-based artist Debra Disman. Disman’s work is inspired by books, which traverses tapestry, installation, and sculpture to push familiar forms and materials into art that bewilder. The exhibition will include new works created in response to Disman’s investigation of artists Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse and how they employed the creative process to transform traumatic pasts into the creation of new art forms. Disman’s tactile works create space for reflection, connection, and solace.
I Can’t I Won’t I Will I Do will be on view at Central Library during regular operating hours from January 28 – March 19, 2023. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 28, from 6pm-8pm.
Disman will also conduct workshops at Central Library at the Be the Change Book Festival on Saturday, February 25, from 10am-4pm, and work with the local community to create handmade books designed to engage the hands, heart, mind, and soul.
Accompanying the exhibition, ReflectSpace will publish an artist book by Disman titled “Concurrencies: Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse: Genius, Trauma and Creative Imagination.” The artist book has grown out of Disman’s research and is an intuitive and fleeting reflection on the lives, works, and imaginations of Salomon and Hesse.
Debra Disman is a Los Angeles-based artist known for her work inspired by books, both as a solo practitioner and in the public sphere of community engagement. As a maker and teaching artist, she creates work and projects that push the book's body and boundaries into new media and materials, inviting altered ways of viewing the world and how we inhabit it.
Her work is shown in multiple museums, galleries, universities, and libraries. Disman is the recipient of a 2016-17 WORD: Artist Grant / Bruce Geller Memorial Prize and was a Studio Resident at the Camera Obscura Art Lab in Santa Monica in 2018. Disman is a local Artist-In-Residence at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica and a 2021-22 Santa Monica Artist Fellow.
ReflectSpace is an inclusive exhibition gallery designed to explore and reflect on major human atrocities, genocides, civil rights violations, and other social injustices. Immersive in conception, ReflectSpace is a hybrid space that is both experiential and informative, employing art, technology, and interactive media to reflect on the past and present of Glendale’s communal fabric and interrogate current-day global human rights issues. ReflectSpace is housed in Glendale Central Library and online at ReflectSpace.org.
Known as the “Jewel City,” Glendale is the fourth largest city of Los Angeles County. With a population of more than 200,000, Glendale is a thriving cosmopolitan city that is rich in history, culturally diverse, and offers nearly 50 public parks, and easy access to a municipal airport. It is the home to a vibrant business community, with major companies in healthcare, entertainment, manufacturing, retail, and banking.
About Library, Arts & Culture
Founded in 1907, the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department includes eight neighborhood libraries including the Brand Library & Art Center, a regional visual arts and music library and performance venue housed in the historic 1904 mansion of Glendale pioneer Leslie C. Brand, and the Central Library, a 93,000 square foot center for individuals and groups to convene, collaborate and create. The department also serves as the chief liaison to the Glendale Arts and Culture Commission which works to continually transform Glendale into an ever-evolving arts destination. Glendale Library Arts & Culture is supported in part through the efforts of the Glendale Library Arts & Culture Trust (GLACT). For more information visit GlendaleLAC.org, or contact Library, Arts & Culture at 818-548-2021 or via email at LibraryInfo@glendaleca.gov.
