Delivering to the world a body of work that is both solid and forceful, yet sensitive and delicate
On the work of Deborah Lawrence Schafer
By María Lightowler
Madrid, February 2024
Deborah Lawrence Schafer works with a multidisciplinary perspective that today's world of visual arts puts at the disposal of the contemporary creator. With audacity and determination, she explores painting, drawing, print-making, interventions with embroidery, photography, and video, among others; almost no medium or surface escapes her. The inventory of resources is infinite for this artist who understands production as a means for reflection and dialogue with the public. Although the aesthetic care and the detail for beauty are never overlooked in her various series, in each of them certain axes that insist on her poetics are present in different ways: the relationship between humans and nature and the disruptive effects on the environment and its surroundings.
Schafer was born in 1970 in San Antonio, Texas (USA), and inherent in the unfolding of her artistic language is her family's Mexican lineage. With measured rigor and deep commitment, she approaches her series based on research, which leads her to engage with different disciplines and fields of human knowledge.
In search of emotional connection with the viewer, through her selection of the color palette, selection of surfaces that provide greater effectiveness to each material, and clever strategies which are only present in those artists who are tireless questioners of themselves, Schafer delivers to the world a body of work that is solid, forceful and at the same time sensitive and delicate.
In "Colors of Lake Tahoe" she draws on collected scientific data to translate to the visual in an attempt to capture the blue of the environment. In "Botanical Offshoot" she flirts with digital intervention, straining the link between original and copy, and then in "Corazones Cosidos" she chooses a Spanish title and intervenes with gold thread, prints of hearts that are pierced by arrows in search of addressing the complexity of love and loss with metaphor and iconography. The recurring appearance of landscapes and the animal world in series such as "Bear Island" or "La mar" and "Fog," among others, always oscillates between English and Spanish to seek references that broaden meanings and interpretations.
"Reflexiones" is undoubtedly the project where her mestizo maternal legacy becomes most evident. It transcends the historical conflicts of colonization and independence to propose an understanding permeated by current conflicts.
There is no doubt that an artist like Deborah Lawrence Schafer will continue questioning the current standards of art in pursuit of achieving that unattainable work—fortunately—which serves as the driving force for those who, like her, possess within themselves the engine of artistry and allow themselves to view the world through that beautiful lens.
On the work of Deborah Lawrence Schafer
By María Lightowler
Madrid, February 2024
Deborah Lawrence Schafer works with a multidisciplinary perspective that today's world of visual arts puts at the disposal of the contemporary creator. With audacity and determination, she explores painting, drawing, print-making, interventions with embroidery, photography, and video, among others; almost no medium or surface escapes her. The inventory of resources is infinite for this artist who understands production as a means for reflection and dialogue with the public. Although the aesthetic care and the detail for beauty are never overlooked in her various series, in each of them certain axes that insist on her poetics are present in different ways: the relationship between humans and nature and the disruptive effects on the environment and its surroundings.
Schafer was born in 1970 in San Antonio, Texas (USA), and inherent in the unfolding of her artistic language is her family's Mexican lineage. With measured rigor and deep commitment, she approaches her series based on research, which leads her to engage with different disciplines and fields of human knowledge.
In search of emotional connection with the viewer, through her selection of the color palette, selection of surfaces that provide greater effectiveness to each material, and clever strategies which are only present in those artists who are tireless questioners of themselves, Schafer delivers to the world a body of work that is solid, forceful and at the same time sensitive and delicate.
In "Colors of Lake Tahoe" she draws on collected scientific data to translate to the visual in an attempt to capture the blue of the environment. In "Botanical Offshoot" she flirts with digital intervention, straining the link between original and copy, and then in "Corazones Cosidos" she chooses a Spanish title and intervenes with gold thread, prints of hearts that are pierced by arrows in search of addressing the complexity of love and loss with metaphor and iconography. The recurring appearance of landscapes and the animal world in series such as "Bear Island" or "La mar" and "Fog," among others, always oscillates between English and Spanish to seek references that broaden meanings and interpretations.
"Reflexiones" is undoubtedly the project where her mestizo maternal legacy becomes most evident. It transcends the historical conflicts of colonization and independence to propose an understanding permeated by current conflicts.
There is no doubt that an artist like Deborah Lawrence Schafer will continue questioning the current standards of art in pursuit of achieving that unattainable work—fortunately—which serves as the driving force for those who, like her, possess within themselves the engine of artistry and allow themselves to view the world through that beautiful lens.