Erica Deeman
Being, 2023
Plaster of Paris, sand, acrylic paint, and neon
Erica Deeman’s work explores the intersections of race, gender, and the hybridity of Black identity. Deeman investigates how we find a sense of belonging and ‘home’ through migratory patterns, memory, cultural and personal experience, and ancestral legacy. An interdisciplinary artist, Deeman works in photography and sculpture. She is also the founder of the Black [Space] Residency.
This piece incorporates the ambiguous term “being” into a neon sign that casts light on its Plaster of Paris support. Plaster of Paris is made of dehydrated gypsum, a naturally occurring mineral mined throughout the United Kingdom, where Deeman was born. In this work, the artist explores the complexity of this extraction, unearthing pieces of her own heritage and memories in the process. The plaster serves as a link between her relatives, who found work as miners after arriving in the UK from Jamaica, and an early memory of breaking her arm and healing in a plaster cast.
Deeman moved to San Francisco from the United Kingdom to pursue her education, first at the Academy of Art, and later received her MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. The artist now splits her time between San Francisco and Seattle. She considers the Bay Area her creative home, but emphasizes the importance of movement, being in a state of suspension as a way to channel the diaspora.
Photos courtesy of Henrik Kam.
ARTIST BIO
Erica Deeman (b. Nottingham, UK) is a visual artist whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, and the hybridity of Black identity. Deeman is concerned with the multiple ways selfhood manifests through queer, transnational and hybrid modes; and how we find a sense of belonging and ‘home’ through migratory patterns, memory, cultural and personal experience, and ancestral legacy. Her multidisciplinary practice embodies the complexity and transformational nature of Blackness.
Deeman currently lives in Seattle, WA and works between here and the Bay Area. She received a Bachelor of Arts, Public Relations, degree in 2000 from Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK; a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, a degree in 2014 from Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA; and MFA in Art Practice at UC Berkeley, CA in 2022.
