Erica Deeman presents "Familiar Stranger" at Anthony Meier Fine Arts, SF

Erica Deeman, Untitled 01 (Self Portrait), 2020. Cassius Obsidian clay, unique in a series, Framed Dimensions: 10 1/2 x 8 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches

Anthony Meier FIne Arts
1969 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

Erica Deeman (MFA 2022, expected) presents an exhibition of new work at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco. In her second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Familiar Stranger, Deeman turns the camera on herself for the first time, sharing 15 intimate self-portraits rendered in Cassius Obsidian clay. In this new series, Deeman continues her reflections on diasporic and transnational movements, Black permanence and the nuance of cultural identity.

"The works of Familiar Stranger begin as black-and-white photographic self-portraits which Deeman then prints as molds via a 3D printer. Cassius Obsidian clay is then pressed into the molds, left to dry for a week, and then fired twice. In the first firing the clay shrinks, cracks, becomes at once volatile and delicate. It is only in the second firing that the pieces take on their ebony veneer. It is significant that though of the earth, Deeman has chosen a human-made clay, mixed in her adopted home of California, a material suited to the artist’s exploration of the roots and routes of her own diasporic identity."

- Leigh Raiford, Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley