I created this body of work during the pandemic. It was directly inspired by Adam’s experimental sumi ink painting. Watching Adam’s daily practice and hearing him talk about what he wanted to create, the behavior of different paper surfaces, water pushing against ink directing its path, got me curious to try this for myself. I worked with kitakata (gampi) paper which I painted with liquid watercolors first. The process I developed is a call and response with the materials — I made a set of quick ink gestures on the wet surface of the paper at night, then placed a sheet of glass with heavy weights on top of the paper and left the studio. In the morning I found the image that developed from my initial ink gestures and the reaction of the water pushing against the gestures under pressure.
The black and silvery gray tones of the images are a nod to early tintypes and spirit photographs. They evoke a world of spirits that arose to keep us company during a time of isolation when we were frightened and seeking grace.
The orange and black pictures combine experimental woodblock and mokuhanga printmaking with ink, kakishibu persimmon tannin, and watercolor painting on handmade Japanese paper. They too feature spirit companions and protectors.
Andrea Dezsö is a visual artist who works across a broad range of media including drawing, painting, printmaking, artist's books, embroidery, cut paper, and public art. Dezsö's permanent public art has been installed in three New York City subway stations, at the United States Embassy in Bucharest, Romania and at CUNY BMCC Fiterman Hall in Lower Manhattan. Community Garden, Dezsö's mosaic in the New York City subway was recognized as Best American Public Art in 2007 by Americans for the Arts.
Dezsö exhibits in museums and galleries around the world and teaches widely. Dezsö is Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
My artwork addresses the lived experience, often taking a figurative and narrative approach. I use visual art to explore personal issues: women’s roles, authoritarianism, family, ideological and societal influence on the individual, relationships with nature, the body. I value art as both a tool of resistance and education against oppression, as well as a deeply meaningful expression of human experience. I travel widely to conduct visual research, and read across disciplines including philosophy, literature, history and science. I am interested in the democratizing power of art in public spaces, and have an active public art practice. I deeply appreciate materials and process and seek to create in the medium best suited to express the conceptual core of a project. I am interested in representations of nature and the spirit world in folk traditions and related visual narratives and have undertaken research travel to meet and study with indigenous and traditionally underrepresented artists and craftspeople in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, China, Finland, Romania, Mexico, Turkey, Hawai’i and across the United States.