Collection: Deborah Schoen

“The best way to describe my practice is that I am a conceptual artist who works in a wide variety of mediums. Some days I work with metal, other days I am drawn to the loom or inspired by found objects. There are times I work on video art pieces, handmade books, or 50 red satin scarves for a socially engaged public installation. I also enjoy working in large-scale public sculpture and have a lifelong affinity for photography. At the end of the day, what ties my work together is my interest in human behavior and researching the endurance, strength and transformative qualities of the female persona. For example, I am a working mother with aging parents and a military spouse, and I often struggle to be in multiple places at one time. That struggle inspired me to create an interactive installation titled The Deborahs Project, where I enlist others to temporarily become me (a Deborah) and send them out simultaneously into the community on various assignments. Simply, put, the act of sending other ‘Deborahs’ out into the world magnifies an abstract concept: who (and where) is Deborah? I feel that in order to understand another person’s struggle it requires empathy and living in their shoes for a little while.”

Deborah Schoen Website - Artist Talk on The World Between the World - Artist Talk on Intricacy