Dee Shapiro
about the artist
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Dee Shapiro was inspired to be an Artist in her early years of education. Dee's career started in the 1970s as a pattern painter with her works of art included in the Pattern and Decoration at P.S. 1 in 1977. She researched and explored the Fibonacci Progression in color on graph paper and also explored geometric complexity of architectural designs, leading her to create the small horizontal oil paintings of cities and landscapes.[1] Dee Shapiro became a Yaddo fellow in 2017.
Dee Shapiro obtained her bachelor's degree in 1958 and Master of Science in 1960 from Queens College, City University of New York. Dee Shapiro is an artist that sees the subject on a large scale, but what she creates is on a diminutive scale. Shapiro's strength is the ability to give expressive power on canvas that makes her work seem larger than they are. Dee Shapiro has been a teacher, lecturer, and writer through career. [2][3] |
Artist Statement
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As in a dream of alternative realities, absurd connections, or on a trip passing familiar landscapes in unfamiliar settings, new conscious and unconscious associations are brought to a 2-dimensional surface in my work. In the recent pieces, geometry (seen even in the structure of organic forms) directs composition: arbitrary drops of color undermine control and create shapes that succumb to the overwork of drawings, rendering obsessive intricacies and paint application building the forms. Collage material adds extraneous influences in a subtle blend.
In the beginning was pattern. First the Fibonacci progression color coded on graph paper, a piece which landed in the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. Next, inclusion in the P & D exhibition at P.S. 1 followed by a series 9of work that included architectural elements off the grid. With all the work, always color, a nod to the Albers studies. A redirection to small horizontal paintings of the geometry in cities and landscapes ensued for a number of years. Missing the early fascination and engagement with pattern led to more recent work exploring evocative biological and organic forms, the evolution of which is the more recent work as well as borrowing from sources that include other artist's work in a collaborative effort. In this new body of work, I am unflinchingly forging ahead to newly wrought terrain. From Raymond Pettibon "Ultimately what I have to say about my own work doesn’t have any more access to the truth about my work than anyone else’s reading of it. Of course, I can try to say what I was thinking or doing when I was working on a specific drawing, but when I am working I am not thinking about where I stand. I am not looking over my shoulder as I work." |
