Georganne Deen
The Secret Storm & The Vogue Book of the Dead
April 7—June 9, 2001
BABILONIA 1808 presents works by Georganne Deen
in a show
titled The Secret Storm & The Vogue Book of the Dead.
GODS ripen,
2001, oil & collage on linen, 70" x 108"
The Secret Storm is a potent cocktail of
desire, disappointment, and desperation. This series of work contains
classified information but reveals the emotional turbulence Deen has experienced
and
come to terms with.
from The Vogue Book of the Dead
The Vogue Book of the Dead is a collection of ersatz fashion ads Deen started creating soon after her mother’s death in 1997. “The paintings reveal what I thought she was trying to tell me from the great beyond, and everything got translated into this language because fashion was the only topic we seemed to be able to discuss without losing our tempers,” says Deen. Both series of works, which include paintings and drawings, were developed over a recent three year period.
In an essay for Deen's exhibition 15 Psychic Orgasms
at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Adam Pafrey notes, "A saturation
of brand names and pretty toys and smart dresses and lovely things in
Georganne's work betrays the unease beneath." Artist Michael Morley
adds, "Georganne Deen portrays a world of icons and stories where
it is not only her own life that is being recorded and scrutinized but
also the lot of the world as it stands. . . The gothic nature of her painted
reality reflects and reveals her own story; this story is also an example
and it acts as testimony to life and how we can negotiate it."
Deen was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1951. She attended
East Texas State, lived in New York between 1975 and 1980, then moved
to Los Angeles to attend California Institute of Arts in Valencia. She
continues to reside in Los Angeles.
Aside from solo exhibitions at the Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa
Monica (1994, 1996, 1997, 1998), The Power Plant in Toronto, Canada (1998),
and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand (1999), selected group
exhibitions include Codex USA, Entwistle, London, Double Trouble:
The Patchett Collection, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (1998);
Art and Provocation: Images from Rebels, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Boulder, Nu Glu, Joseph Helman Gallery, New York (1997); New
Pop, Museum de Fortuny, Venice (1994) and Comic Power, Exit
Art, New York, (1993).
When Deen created The Mother Load series in 1994,
she intended each of the paintings to be hung in particular rooms of a
home. With the current works installed in a newly renovated 122-year-old
Victorian, a dynamic interaction takes place between art and art space
as Deen's work inhabits a domestic setting.
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