Record

CodeDS/UK/534
Person NameBright; Deborah (1950 -); Photographer, Writer, Painter
Dates1950 -
HistoryDeborah Bright lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Fogg Museum, Harvard; Addison Gallery of American Art; Katonah Museum of Art; Leslie-Lohman Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum; the Museet for Fotokunst, Copenhagen; Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Vancouver Art Gallery; and included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum; National Museum of American Art; Addison Gallery of American Art; Fogg Art Museum; Leslie-Lohman Museum, Boston Athenaeum, Rose Art Museum; California Museum of Photography and the RISD Museum. She has received numerous grants and awards for her art and critical writing and edited a noted book on queer photography, The Passionate Camera: photography and bodies of desire.

After a productive three decades of practice and writing in photography, Bright returned to her first loves—painting and drawing—to express thoughts, memories and feelings that have few analogs in the physical world. The drawings and paintings mine an eclectic mix of queer, pop, psychedelic and text-based sources, charged by vivid colors and dynamic compositions where naturalistically rendered forms intertwine with abstract shapes and symbols.
ActivitySelected Solo/Two-Artist Exhibitions

2021 “Deborah Bright: Small Appliances,” Spantzo Gallery, NYC

2021 “FLEX: Deborah Bright and Cecilia André,” The Yard, Williamsburg, NYC

2011 “Deborah Bright: Destruction Layer,” Ctr. For Visual Arts, U. of Toledo, Toledo, OH

2011 “Deborah Bright: Glacial Erratic, Plymouth, MA,” Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA

2009 “Deborah Bright: Destruction Layer,” Chazan Gallery, Providence, RI

2008 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Migdal Shalom Gallery, Tel Aviv, IS

2008 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Ft. Point Channel Gallery, Boston, MA

2006 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Contemporary Arts Collective, Las Vegas, NV

2005 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Bridgewater State Univ., Bridgewater, MA

2002 “Deborah Bright: Manifest,” Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

2001 “Deborah Bright: All That Is Solid,” CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2000 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” NEFA Gallery, Boston, MA

2000 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Mass. Cultural Council Gallery, Boston, MA

1998 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

1998 “Deborah Bright: All That Is Solid,” Wheeler Gallery, Providence, RI

1997 “Deborah Bright: All That Is Solid,” Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, GA

1995 “Deborah Bright: Being & Riding,” Rothschild Gallery, Harvard University, MA

1992 “Deborah Bright: Chicago Stories,” University Art Gallery UC Irvine, Irvine, CA

1992 “Deborah Bright: Chicago Stories,” Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers Univ.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2023 “HUQ” I Seek No Favor,” Gallery 5, San Jose State U., San Jose, CA

2022 “Past is Prologue: History in Contemporary Art,” Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

2021 “Spring Break Art Fair,” (booth curated by Nate Garcia), NYC

2021 “Mighty Joy,” Spantzo Gallery, NYC

2020 “Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989,” Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

2020 “USA 35x35 Project,” Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens, Greece

2019 “Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989,” Grey Art Gallery, NYU, NYC

2019 “Five Artists,” AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA

2019 “Queer Forms,” Katherine Nash Gallery, Univ . of Minn., Minneapolis, MN

2019 “The Other Is You: Queer Portraits,” BRIC Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2018 “Photographs and Paintings,” AMP Gallery, Provincetown, MA

2018 “Cast of Characters,” Bureau of Gen’l Services—Queer Division, LGBTQ Ctr, NYC

2017 “Performance and Photography,” Welch School of Fine Arts, Georgia State Univ., Atlanta, GA

2017 “Nasty Women,” Knockdown Center, Queens, NYC

2016 “Voyage of the Beagle,” Radiator Gallery, Queens, NYC

2016 “Cut-Ups,” Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, NYC

2016 “Sublime Resonance,” Rubelle and Norman Schafler Gallery, Pratt Inst., Brooklyn NYC

2015 “Homosexualities,: Schwules Museum, Berlin, Germany

2015 “The Artist as Provocateur,” Rubelle and Norman Schafler Gallery, Pratt Inst., Brooklyn, NYC

2013 “This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s,” ICA, Boston, MA

2012 “The Mutable Portrait,” Clifford Chance, NYC

2012 “This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s,” MCA, Chicago, IL

2012 “This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

2012 “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” Brooklyn Museum, NYC

2010 “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC

2008 “This Show Needs You,” ICA, San Jose, CA

2008 “Pink and Bent,” Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, NYC

2006 “Don’t Know Much About History,” ArtSpace, New Haven, CT

2006 “Disturbing the Peace,” Denise Bibro Fine Arts, NYC

2005 “Faculty Exhibition,” Carpenter Ctr., Harvard Univ. Cambridge, MA

2005 “Soft Boundaries,” Biggins Gallery, Auburn University, Auburn, AL

2005 “375 Views of Boston,” Boston City Hall, MA

2004 “Land of the Free,” Clifford Gallery, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY

2004 “Photography and Place,” Museum of Art, RISD, Providence, RI

2004 “On Location,” Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI

2004 “Identities,” Northlight Gallery, Ariz. State Univ., Tempe, AZ

2003 “Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self,” ICP Triennial, NYC

2002 “Review/Preview,” Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

2001 “Paradise In Search of a Future,” CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2001 “Horse Tales,” Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY

1992 "Stolen Glances," Camerawork, London



Selected Public Collections

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

Boston Atheneum, Boston, MA

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, NYC

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, IL

National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI

Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

State of Illinois Center Permanent Collection, Chicago, IL

Trustman Art Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA

University Art Museum, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
SourceDusseault, Ruth, 'Deborah Bright', Art Papers, 21 (1997) p. 45.
'About', Deborah Bright, <https://www.deborahbright.art/about1> [accessed 17 January 2024]
Catalogue
RefNoTitle
CWA/2/2/85Tessa Boffin, Deborah Bright, Jacqui Duckworth, Jean Fraser, Del LaGrace Volcano, Mumtaz Karimjee, Nina Levitt, Lynette Molnar, Ingrid Pollard, Jill Posener: Stolen Glances - Lesbian Take Photographs, 9 September - 9 October, 1992
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