Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.

I was born in Brazil and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. Since a young age, I was drawn to painting and attended a specialized high school. I then went on to study art as an undergraduate at the Tel Aviv School of Art, and later earned my MFA at CalArts.


After I graduated, I moved to NYC and have been here ever since, exhibiting, attending programs and residencies such as the Whitney ISP, A.I.M at the Bronx Museum, and Skowhegan. My art journey was nonlinear. I had many interruptions, setbacks, and even periods where I almost quit, as there were so many obstacles, some of them self imposed. I started as a painter, then transitioned to multi media, conceptual art and even performance. After a very long voyage, I returned to painting, which is what I do now. Read more...
​

 

Kuma Lisa is pleased to announce This Bitter Earth, Deborah Wasserman’s solo show with the gallery. A grouping of large and small-scale oil paintings and ink drawings of landscapes traces Wasserman’s interest in the themes of climate crisis, migration, and the pursuit of belonging.
​
 
 
This Bitter Earth
Paintings and drawings by Deborah Wasserman
 
Kuma Lisa Gallery, 56 Eldridge St.
Opening Reception: April 11th, 6-8 pm
Show dates: April 11 - May 4
 

Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday 1 - 6 and by appointment
kumalisaofficial@gmail.com
​
​
​
​

NYFA selected four of my large paintings for the group show A View from the Mountain Top at Rockefeller Plaza. The exhibition, which opened on May 3rd, is housed in the magnificent headquarters of the Rockefeller Management Group and includes 30 artworks from 8 NYFA affiliated artists, including myself. I am beyond honored to be part of this project!
​
​
​
​

I’m excited to be heading to Miami this week. My work will be featured at Plataforma ArtBase, as part of the Latin American Art Fair Pinta Miami.
 
A native of Brazil, I was born in São Paulo and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. Much of my work explores the immigrant experience of bridging these two very different, almost opposite cultures, climates, and landscapes.

I will be presenting small and large paintings of lands with forests, fires, and bodies of water.
 
Please visit and get in touch if you wish to connect in Miami.

Deborah

Pinta Miami 2022
*New Location*
The Hangar in Coconut Grove
3385 Pan American Drive,
Coconut Grove,
Miami FL 33133
Booth D-1
​
​
​
​
​

I am thrilled to announce the unveiling of my latest public art project titled "The Stoop" in collaboration with the New York City Department of Transportation, Rockwell Group and 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition. Located on 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, The Stoop is both a utilitarian object, used for sitting, storage and staging, as well as a gathering place for the community to come together and enjoy public spaces. Inspired by Jackson Heights blooming in Spring, I created a unique design that includes the tree-lined streets and red brick buildings typical of the neighborhood. To see the making of The Stoop, please click here.
​
PRESS
​
Special thanks to: 

• 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition

• Rockwell Group 

• New York City Department of Transportation,

• Arcana

• The Horticultural Society of New York (maintenance)

​
​
​
​
​

Eighteen artists from two studios in Woodside will open their doors to the public for their first Open Studios on Sunday, June 12. The artists, who are mostly from Queens, represent a wide range of artistic paths and mediums — from visual art, design, and photography to DJing and poetry — as well as the community’s many particular experiences and voices.
 
Woodside Open Studios will take place on Sunday, June 12, 2022 from 12 to 5 p.m. at the “two studios on one street.” This is a great opportunity to meet each artist and see their work!
 
Mondo Studios 33-55 55th St, 2nd Floor, Woodside
Heptagon Studios  33-46 55th St, 2nd Floor, Woodside
Transportation: M/R lines to Northern Blvd; Q66 bus 
​
My studio is #22 at Heptagon
​
 
Masks are required! Both studios are located on the 2nd floor of their respective buildings (across the street from one another) and are accessible only via stairs.

I am excited to be showing a large painting at this group exhibit.  Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats will be on view at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center May 7—June 4, 2022, including over fifty artists who are members of ecoartspace, an international platform for artists addressing environmental issues.
 
"Ordinarily, human beings, especially urbanites, find it difficult to situate themselves as embedded in their habitat. This exhibition aims to inspire visitors to view one’s environment as habitat and to realize one’s contribution to habitat. When we walk in the woods, we become part of the forest."
​
Sue Spaid, curator
 
​

I was so delighted to spend some time talking to these four outstanding artists: Julia Adzuki, Nancy Azara and Toni Gentili.

" For our January 2022 Tree Talk, Julia Adzuki shared her spoken word poetry and tactile sound in an intra-active performance situated in and around an ancient European Ash. Deborah Wasserman presented her expressive paintings, drawings, and performances that explore themes surrounding Mother Nature, ecological threats, and the heroine's quest. Nancy Azara discussed her carved, assembled, and painted wood sculptures that record a journey of memory, images, and ideas, including the unseen and the unknown. Toni Gentilli spoke about her collaboration with living materials to collapse distinctions between self/other, inner/outer, humans/nature, and to honor the labor of maintaining healthy earth bodies outside the extractive, reductive paradigms of capitalism, patriarchy, and modern medicine."
​
Tree Talk is moderated by Sant Khalsa
 
​

I am so pleased to be a part of this online exhibit, accompanied by a large catalog, curated by Lilian Frajili. I have been reading the catalog and flipping through the pages and honestly, I cannot get enough.  The show itself feels like a web, a forest of ideas and expressions of nature, eco systems, growth and even, decay.

"One hundred and ninety-one ecoartspace members applied to the call for artists, and ninety were selected by guest juror Lilian Fraiji, curator of LABVERDE based in Manaus, Brazil. Countries represented by seventeen of the Embodied Forest artists outside the United States include Brazil, England, Sweden, Australia, Belgium, and Germany. The range of topics addressed is vast, including insects, breath, wildfires, birds, fungi, logging, growth rings, transpiration, mycorrhizal networks, canopy shyness, the cellular tissue of trees, forest immersion, reciprocity, trees as memories, rights of nature, trees as witnesses of history, colonial and capitalist extraction/ white supremacy, the sonification of trees, symbiotic relationships, trees as bioindicators, tree as medicines, conservation and restoration, beetle infestations, migrations of tree habitat, Indigenous knowledge, and cultural burns."
 
​

October 2021
 
I'm so glad I met curator Bernadine Franco who is now a friend. She came to my studio in Queens, NYC, we discussed my work, and a week later, recorded a podcast.
During our conversation, I shared so much of my artistic philosophy and ideas. Please follow the link and listen!
​
 
 
​

I'm so pleased to be a part of an online exhibit on Artsy, organized by Catherine Fosnot Gallery.

"In honor of Women's History Month, The Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery and Center is featuring ten contemporary female artists. Their works broach a wide range of topics including identity, community, background, complex physicality, cultural influence, and intersectionality.This group of female artists is worth recognizing during Women's History Month. The ten contemporary artists featured in this show are: Lisa Corinne Davis, Elisa D'Arrigo, Helen Frederick, Deborah Wasserman, Katie Ruiz, Alex McQuilkin, Yasi Alipour, Susan Firestone, Charity Baker, and Catherine Fosnot."

To see the show, log into Artsy, and enter the Viewing Rooms. I also invite you to follow my work on Artsy, for occasional updates. 
 
​

As a part of the Queens Council On The Arts New Work Grant, 2020, I'm giving a talk about my work via zoom on February 27th, 2020 via Jackson Heights Art Talk. The talk is organized and moderated by artist Linda Ganjian. You can listen to a recording of this presentation here.

Selected artworks from the Plurabelle series will be included in the online exhibit, Contemporary Portraiture, Redefining the Figure, hosted by Visionary Art Collective and curated by Erica Hess of "I Like Your Work" podcast. The exhibit showcases 24 artists who are invested in creating a contemporary redefinition of the figure. Stay tuned to the show via the Visionary Collective website and Instagram page.  

My work is included in a wonderful show titled You Are Not Wonderful Just Because You Are A Mother, a quote taken from Ishiuchi Miyako quote from March 2020 video interview.  Curated by Quiana Mestrich. Color catalog available. You can take a look at the catalog in the Press section of my site, or here. 

I am excited to have four artworks in a group show at the newly opened Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery And Center. 

"This is  a major exhibition of 26 artists recommended by New York City art critics as important artists to collect."

The Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery And Center
November 14th, through January 1st, 2021
 
Color catalog available

Participating artists: 
Yasi Alipour, Charity Baker, Charity Baker, Matt Blackwell, Carlo D'Anselmi, Elisa D'Arrigo, Lisa Corinne Davis, Elizabeth Enders, Susan Firestone, Helen Frederick, Max Gimblett, Abby Goldstein
Fred Gutzeit , Shirley Kaneda, Richard McDonough, Richard Kalina, Stephen Lack, Madeline Ludwig-Leone, Alex Mcquilkin, Graham Nickson, Louis Osmosis, Peter Plagens, Karlis Rekevics, Katie Ruiz, Robert Storr,
Deborah Wasserman

I am excited to be a 2020  NYFA Finalist in the category of Printmaking/Drawing/Book Art. Having my work being noticed from a pool of almost 4000 applicants gave a huge boost to my confidence and has been very encouraging.

 

I'm delighted to be approached by Art Spiel, to share my thoughts and reflections about making art and being an artist in NYC, in the midst of quarantine. 

This year I have been awarded a Queens Council On The Arts 2020 New Work Grant. I proposed a solo exhibit titled Eulogy To Wander Woman, an installation of paintings, drawings, and photographs dedicated to women migrants, underlying the connection between climate change and migration.

Now for the fourth year, Su Casa grant for conducting a residency in a local senior center.  In 2019 I received a grant from the NYC Department Of Cultural Affairs to design and implement an art residency with seniors in Woodside, Queens. I absolutely enjoyed every aspect of my residency, especially introducing my students to abstract art inspired by the work of artists Hilma af Klint, and Beatriz Milhazes. 

Group show, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, No Dead Artists
​
I am so excited to participate in a show at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery. Apparently, only 16 artists were chosen from a group of 600 applicants. New Orleans is a stunning city and I was thrilled to attend the opening in person!

In his 2017 inaugural address, incoming CalArts president Ravi S. Rajan called on CalArtians everywhere to cherish their role as “Citizen Artists” who, in the words of the Institute’s founding provost Herbert Blau, are in a unique position to help “put the whole cracked world back together.” Beginning with this issue, The Pool will bring you the stories of alumni who exemplify this vision of Citizen Artists— graduates who have found a unique way to, as Rajan put it,
“steer us toward a better future.”

I thoroughly enjoyed organizing with Tal Dekel, from the Tel Aviv University, a panel with some impressive women scholars from Israeli Academia, in conjunction with my exhinbit Wander, Woman. In this panel, accompanied by a performance by dancer Shlomit Yaron, we spoke about women's labor, migration, art-making, identity, and representation. Participants: Prof. Zmira Poran, Prof. Tal Dekel, Prof. Sigal Barkai, artist Deborah Wasserman.

Wander, Woman
A solo exhibit by Deborah Wasserman, July 5-28, 2018
A mixed-media exhibition of drawing, collage & installation
Zaritsky Artists' House
9 Elkharizi St, Tel Aviv-Yaffo
. 

Currents at A.I.R. Gallery
CURRENTS: ABORTION
Curated by Barbara Zucker
JANUARY 5 - FEBRUARY 4, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, January 5th from 6-8PM
​

Hospitality is a public intervention commissioned by RPGA studio with the theme of Dwelling. This intervention is a part of a larger event in which thirteen other artists will be exploring a similar idea throughout Queens.

Details:
Hospitality
Sep 23rd, 2017, 12-4:00PM
Roosevelt Ave, Jackson Heights, NY
. 

I'm thrilled to be a 2018 Puffin Foundation Grant recipient!
. 

In 2016 I was awarded a NYFA IAP: Social Practice Fellowship
IAP: Social Practice is a year-long professional development program for immigrant and 1st-generation artists working in all forms of socially engaged art (including, but not limited to, public and community engagement and advocacy around issues of environment and climate change, immigration, race, gender, and social justice). 

​
"...Watching performance artist Deborah Wasserman in action, you’d swear she had multiple personalities. Last Saturday at Corona Plaza, she channeled her inner nature goddess and became green Mother Earth/Queen of Trash, a long cape of garbage trailing behind her, as curious passers-by watched and wondered..." Please follow the link to read complete article.

Commissioned by Queens Art Intervention, I was fortunate to realize The longest journey begins with a single step project which utilizes 135 pairs of shoes worn by my two daughters since they were born. These shoes represent the voyage (in time and space) that my children are taking as well as my own passage as a mother, the witness who documents, accompanies and marvels in their journey.

I just completed my residency at Su Casa, with a grant from Queens Council On The Arts, NYC Department Of Cultural Affairs.  My residency focused on personal histories/family and community.  We created fifteen quilts with portraits and family trees of participating residents.  Loved working at Corona Senior Center.  I have met some magnificent individuals.  

In A Woman's Work Is Never Done, I will be sharing my perspective on being a woman/artist/homemaker and how it applies to labor/art/market. "... the very definition of art has been biased in that 'art' was what men did in European tradition and 'crafts' were what women and natives did. But it's actually all the same" —Gloria Steinem

​
I was thrilled to have been invited to SCAD for almost a week, to do a presentation and conduct two days of studio visits and crits with graduate students from the Fine Arts Department, Spring 2005.