EVE DEISHER: INDICATOR

Exhibition Date: October 5, 2019 - January 11, 2020
Reception Date: Saturday, October 5, 2019 - 2-5pm
Curator Talk: Saturday, October 5, 2019 - 1pm, with Curator Lanny Bergner

Eve Deisher: Indicator is a retrospective featuring visual artist Eve Deisher’s drawings and mixed-media fiber works created from 1982 to 2015. Eve was born Eve Deisher Loughran in 1954, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She attended Epson School of Art and Design, Epson, Surrey, England, from 1972-1973. In 1981, she received a BFA in Art History and Studio Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Eve’s art career began in Richmond, Virginia, in the early ’80s while doing post-graduate work in Museum Studies at VCU. These early drawings were inspired by the posture and gesture of the human figure while in dance poses. In 1984, Eve moved back to Philadelphia, where she began creating narrative works dealing with urban issues and social injustice in combination with personal introspections.

In 1994, Eve moved to the rural environment of Fidalgo Island in Washington State with her husband, sculptor Lanny Bergner. She began teaching art at Skagit Valley College in 1995 and continued to teach there until 2017. She maintained her studio practice during those years and quietly developed a significant body of work, twenty-six of which are in the exhibition.

While living in the Pacific Northwest her interests gradually shifted from drawing to fiber-based work. She began exploring combining paper, fabric, and sewing.

“I love the mark or line of charcoal and thread equally. I like to combine the effects of shadows, translucency, and layering. This rural environment of density, darkness, mist and mystery fuel my exploration of these landscapes. Chaos and order exist in a visual web of imagery within the work.”

“I draw to mark an emotional narrative scene, using the human form as a vessel to express fears, struggles, differences, desires, and choices. I attempt to make visible uncomfortable or disturbing human behavior that is veiled by the structure of society. Although my pieces take a narrative form, I prefer them to maintain a sense of mystery and project somewhat surreal qualities in their final state.”

During the 1984-1994 Philadelphia years, theater, stage design, Japanese Butoh and modern dance inspired many of her powerful drawing compositions. Another distinctive aspect of this body of work was her use of herself in photographic studies. These expressive and theatrical full-body images are presented in 16 photographs in the exhibition, along with their accompanying large-scale drawings. There are 25 drawings in all from the Philadelphia years in the MoNA exhibition.

In 2015, Eve completed her final work, the mixed media wall installation, “Forest Moonlight,” while undergoing cancer treatment. It was created for “Here and There: Topographic Conversations with Morris Graves” and was exhibited at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, CA and at the Museum of Northwest Art. “Forest Moonlight” has been reinstalled as part of this Eve Deisher retrospective. Eve Deisher passed away from lung cancer that had spread to her brain on January 30th, 2017. 

Each of her works was an indicator of a place and time in history and an indicator of the creator’s state of mind. The body of work she left behind is a testimony to creative perseverance and the need for the artist to bear witness to human struggles, both personal and universal. 

Lanny Bergner
Guest Curator