Debra Disman
Debra Disman is a Los Angeles-based artist known for her work inspired by the book, both as a solo practitioner and in the public sphere of community engagement. As a maker, teaching artist, researcher and writer she creates work and projects which investigate states of being and connectedness through intensive interactions with materials, while attempting to fully explore and exploit their haptic properties.
Her work is widely shown in museums, galleries, universities, libraries and art centers including ArtShare LA; The Irvine Fine Arts Center; The New Bedford Art Museum; The Brand Library and Art Center and ReflectSpace Gallery in Glendale, CA; Craft Contemporary in LA, The Long Beach Museum of Art; The University of the Arts in Philadelphia; The Cape Cod Museum of Art; The Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA; The University of Puget Sound; and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery as well as through social practice and community endeavors.
Disman was the featured artist for the Big Read in LA in 2016 and is the recipient of an inaugural 2016-17 WORD: Artist Grant / Bruce Geller Memorial Prize to create “The Sheltering Book”, a life-sized book structure designed as a catalyst for community creativity. She has been commissioned by LA’s Craft Contemporary Museum to create an interactive book for the 2017 exhibition, “Chapters: Book Arts in Southern California" and by 18th Street Arts Center to create the artists’ book, “Unfolding Possibilities” in 2021 in collaboration with the community at-large. Her book, “CONCURRENCIES Charlotte Salomon and Eva Hesse: Genius, Trauma and the Creative Imagination” was published by ReflectSpace Gallery/Glendale Library Arts and Culture in 2023.
She was a 2018 Studio Resident at the Camera Obscura Art Lab at 1450 Ocean in Santa Monica and has served as an Artist-in-Residence with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs since 2017. A Santa Monica Artist Fellow in 2021-22, she has been an artist-in-residence at 18th Street Arts Center since 2018.
