Deedee Davis and Casey Roberts: Works and Collaborative Works at Home Gallery

by Lee Ann Norman

Deedee Davis "Pluto 1, Water 1"

A few months ago, some friends of mine told me about a little gallery in Hyde Park in which the couple used their living quarters as the exhibition space – the Home Gallery.  (They also told me I should stop by the upcoming opening because they would have a piece in the show.)  I took their advice, mostly to support them and their beautiful video-based works, but quickly fell in love with the concept of Home Gallery.  So much art in a rather quaint place, but never cluttered, never too intrusive, always just right and well, homey.  The works of Deedee Davis and Casey Roberts fit nicely in the Larch’s spaces.  Enamel on glass next to cyanotype drawings and collages.  So many textures, so many layers.

Casey Roberts "Hope For The Best"

Perhaps it is fitting that Roberts works in the very old and natural photochemical process of cyanotype.  Roberts is interested in our relationship to the natural world and its relationship to us.  His work explores how humans and nature collaborate, collude, and dialogue together, consciously and not.  Cyanotype as an alternative photo making process is lovely, but painstaking.  All you can do is wait, and hope for a pleasant surprise one the paper is exposed.  Knowing that Roberts uses the mixture like pigment itself (painting images directly on the paper, rather than first fully coating papers and creating images by not allowing certain areas to be exposed to the sun) gave me a new appreciation for the medium.  Through this innovative technique, he is able to expose the papers multiple times, creating the deep indigo hues in layers, producing what ultimately become vibrant studies and variations on cyanotype’s distinctive blue, similar to the monochrome variances most often used in sumi-e.

Casey Roberts "Surf Sprayed Rainbow 2"

For variety, he uses common items including baking soda, bleach, and peroxide to achieve a more earthy range of browns and beiges.  On top of these exposures, he often adds some images or text in gouache, or paper cutout shapes used to create collages, which almost looks punchy against the blues.

Davis’ work serves as a proper compliment to Robert’s seductively subtle blue hues.  Her enamel paintings are a bit tongue and cheek, such as the black and white “Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux” and the sky blue, orange, and blackish “Pluto 1 Water 1.”  The two have been collaborating on and off for nearly a decade, and it shows; they seem to “get’ each other’s work.  Their styles are vastly different in technique (although both painting processes involve much time, patience, and care) and subject; however, a focus on our relationship to our environment seems to resonate in each one’s work – the interactions, exchanges, agreements, and compromises we make in order to live on this earth.

This work is best experienced in its current setting, at the Home, where you can wander around eating crackers, sit on the bed and watch a short film, and put your face too close to the images if you like.