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Ad Code: 4
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An example of work by Elisa F. Decker
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Elisa Decker
The following, submitted August 2004, is from the artist, whose studio is in New York City. Her website is www.westbeth.org/decker/decker.html
EDUCATION
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
B.F.A. summa cum laude, 1974
Subject Matter: Nature/organic forms, especially trees and rocks and how they relate to the forms of the human body. Also, figures, portraits and still lifes.
Style of work: Realist
Mediums: Oil paintings on canvas, wood, or gessoed paper; murals; drawings --pastel, pencil, watercolor, colored pencil; and color photography.
BIOGRAPHY
Elisa Decker was born in Los Angeles, California to parents in the professional theater. When the artist was eight years old, the family packed up the car and drove East where her mother pursued her theatrical career in New York City and her father attended Hebrew Union College. Her mother went on to appear in many Broadway and road productions, including being in the original cast and subsequent productions of "Man of La Mancha"; her father became a Cantor.
Ms. Decker's parents recognized her early interest and abilities in drawing and encouraged her development. While attending High School in New Jersey, she studied privately with Perry Zimmerman and in July 1968 received a scholarship to study landscape painting with Lee Gaskins at the Pingry School. Her love of nature and working directly on location was already apparent.
After two years at SUNY, Binghamton (1969-71), with a strong foundation in drawing with Don DeMauro and Charles Eldred, and a minor in French, Decker transferred to the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, graduating in January 1974 with a BFA in Painting. At the Institute, Decker focused on figure and landscape drawing and painting. Babe Shapiro, one of her more influential teachers, encouraged experimentation and the artist explored working in a large format in a loose, abstract-expressionist style.
Numerous art colony residency grants, both in the U.S. and abroad, have made a strong impact on the artist's development, her landscape work in particular. The first of those residencies, was at the Millay Colony (1975), where Decker did drawings on location, followed by large studio paintings.
Other residencies have included The MacDowell Colony, Ragdale Foundation, Millay Colony, I-Park, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Rocky Mountain National Park, Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic, The Camargo Foundation, Fondation Karolyi, Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, and Chateau de Lesvault in France and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain. Captivated by the olive trees and the light during her first residency at the Fondation Karolyi in Vence (1989), she frequently returns to France to paint and photograph.
Another integral part of Decker's life that has had a strong impact on her work, is her love of dance and the drums. She began to study Congolese Dance with Titos Sompa in 1976. During that time she was also doing live drawings of jazz musicians. Paintings and drawings from that series were featured in her first one-woman exhibition at the Studio Gallery (1976), then on Madison and 93rd Street, New York City. Many of those works are in private collections.
For the next twenty years she got deeply involved with Haitian dance and culture, studying with Serge St. Juste, Frisner Augustin, Pearl Reynolds and Lavinia Williams, returning to Congolese with Bernadine Jennings. More recently she has focused on the orisha dances of Cuba, studying with Richard Gonzalez.
In 1986-7, Decker painted murals for a Haitian peristyle in Brooklyn, which appear in Karen Kramer's documentary, "Legacy of the Spirits". The artist also printed a limited edition silkscreen of "Amba", a Haitian dancer, the image of which first appeared in one of the mural paintings she did in 1990 at the Carlton Arms Hotel, NYC. Decker imbues her landscape paintings and drawings with the spirit of the dance, bringing out the movement inherent in the forms of nature.
Figure and portrait painting have also figured strongly into Decker's oeuvre. Amongst her many portraits is a painting she did in 1979 of Madonna, when Madonna was an artist's model and Decker hired her to pose. That painting is still in the collection of the artist. The actress Nancy Coleman commissioned Decker to paint her portrait. In the 80's, while doing a series of paintings of reclining males nudes, Decker curated a 20-artist exhibition, "The Male Nude: Women Regard Men" (1986) at the Hudson Center Galleries, 105 Hudson Street, New York City.
Other shows curated by Decker include, "Beyond Appearances" (1997), a 4-person show at La Mama La Galleria; "Private Mythologies" (1999), an exhibition of twenty-four artists from 10 countries, at the Westbeth Gallery and "Diving into the Details" (2004), a six-person show at NURTUREart Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Though continuing to work from life, superimpositions of images and intonations of the surreal began to creep into her realism. In paintings such as "Arching Tree" (o/c 1987), "Arbitra" (o/c 1990), "Les Amoureux Arborescents" and "Arbor Vitae" (o/c 1991), "Pleine Lune" (oil on wood, 1994), and "Yggdrasil" (o/c 1998), trees combine with the body or are suggestive of it. Though anchored in reality, Decker's work has an otherworldly quality that invites the viewer on a magical journey. Organic weathered forms, resembling bone and sinew undulate in a shimmering dance. Mysterious crevices lead to secret places and hidden treasures. Swirling roots and limbs pulse and vibrate in a visceral landscape revealing the spectral, fairy-tale shapes of the imagination.
When shifting her focus to photography, Decker continues to see the world through the eyes of a painter and celebrates the act of finding her subjects by chance. Whether zeroing in on the shifting fragments of salt marshes, lavender cloaked in snow, or the linear intricacy of fishing nets, she loses herself in the pure movement, color, shape and texture. Ongoing series include sensual fruits and vegetables, trees, reflections and urban found art.
Decker's work is in the permanent collections of Pfizer, Inc., NYC; International Art Studio, Valievo, Serbia; Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic; Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado and in many private collections.
SELECTED RESIDENCIES, HONORS, AND AWARDS
MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, Fundacion Valparaiso, Altos de Chavon, Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, Chateau de Lesvault, Fondation Karolyi, Ragdale Foundation, William Allen White Cabin, Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, Ossabaw Island Foundation.
2004 The Artists' Enclave at I-Park, East Haddam, CT
2003 Camargo Foundation Grant and Residency, Cassis, France.
2002 & 1996 Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program, Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, Malansac, France
2001 Abbey Fund grant for Workshop in Mural Painting at National Academy of Design
1996-2000 Board of Directors, New York Artists Equity
1991,1988 Artists Space Exhibition Grants: Fairleigh Dickenson, La Mama
1987 Dr. Maury Leibovitz Art Award, Artists Welfare Fund
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (1991 Present)
2005 Westbeth Gallery, NYC (Oct 8- Nov 6)
2004 Pfizer Inc., "Seeing Between the Lines, New Photographs", NYC
2001 Clayton & Liberatore Gallery, "Mostly Nature", Bridgehampton, NY
2000 & 1999 Keyspan Gallery, "Earth & Water"; "Juicy Fruit & Other Tales", Brooklyn, NY
1999 TAI Gallery, "Sur Nature", Chelsea, NYC
1994 & 1991 La MaMa La Galleria, "Transformations"; "Arbor Vitae", NYC
EXHIBITIONS CURATED
2004 NurtureArt Gallery, "Diving into the Details" (6 artists), Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
1999 Westbeth Gallery, "Private Mythologies" (24 artists), NYC
1997 La MaMa La Galleria, "Beyond Appearances" (4 artists), NYC
1986 Hudson Center Galleries, "The Male Nude: Women Regard Men" (20 artists), NYC (catalogue)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004 & 2002 Contemporary Artists Guild (CAG), Broome Street Gallery, NYC
2003 Chez TGN, "Miraculous: Contemporary Exvotos Paintings", Brooklyn, NY
2003 Musee du Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, "1990-2003 40 Peintres Americains a Rochefort-en-Terre" (catalogue)
2003 Maryland Institute of Art, "Rochefort-en-Terre Exhibit and Benefit Auction", Baltimore, MD
2003 & 1999 Contemporary Artists Guild at Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, NYC
2002 International Art Studio, summer invitational (5 artists), (catalogue), Valjevo, Serbia
2001 National Academy of Design, "Abbey Fund Workshop in Mural Painting", NYC
2001 Millay Colony, Annual Art at Steepletop, past residents invitational, Austerlitz, NY
2001 MMC Gallery, Marymount Manhattan College, "Et cum spiritu tuo" (2 artists), NYC
1999 Maryland Institute College of Art, "Les Jardins de Rochefort-en-Terre", Baltimore, MD
1999 Soho 20, "Sylvia Sleigh's Collection of Works by Women Artists", NYC
1998 "World Artists For Tibet" at Synchronicity Space, NYC
1998 San Jacinto College, "Landscapes of the Mind", CA
1996 Musee du Chateau de Rochefort-en-Terre, "Quatre Artistes Americaines", Brittany, France
1995,1989,1985 Glass Gallery, Works on Paper, NYC
1993 Gallery Etc., "Erotica Erotica", Staten Island, NY
1992 Ganymede Gallery, "Men by Women", NYC
1990 Muscarelle Museum of Art, "American Drawing Biennial II " (juried, Cara Denison), VA
1988 Edward Williams Gallery at Fairleigh Dickenson University, "The Landscape: Two Views", NJ
1987 Creative Arts Workshop, "Contemporary Portraits from the Northeast" (juried, Philip Pearlstein), CT
SELECTED SPECIAL PROJECTS
1994 Talley Beatty Memorial Piece, Dr. Glory Van Scott commission, NYC
1990 Wall Murals, Carlton Arms Hotel, NYC
1982 Religious Wall Murals in Haitian Vodou temple, Botanica St. Jacques Majeur, Brooklyn, NY
(appear in Karen Kramer's documentary "Legacy of the Spirits")
1974 Performance pieces for "The Fringe", collaboration with Sally Potter and Jackie Lansley for Richard Demarco Gallery at Edinburgh Festival, Scotland
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
On-going Private students (since 1994)
2001 Long Island University, Visiting Artist Workshop, Brooklyn, NY
2000 CUNY BMCC, Womens History Month, guest lecturer, NYC
1998 & 1997 Arts in Action Co, workshops in public schools, NJ
1994 Carnegie Hall workshops in public schools, "Influences and Inspirations", NYC
1993 Panelist, Career Day, Maryland Institute College of Art, MD
1987 Instructor, University of Southern Maine, Visiting Artists Workshop, ME
1987 Lecture: Curating "The Male Nude: Women Regard Men", Smith College, MA
1984 Workshop with muralist John Biggers and composer Jan Cole, "African Symbols in Art," Houston, TX
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