Bio & Statement

Artist Bio

Angela Deane, b. 1977, while best known for her small paintings on photographs, is currently pursuing an ever-growing body of larger works on both canvas and paper, as well as the moving image.

She has shown both domestically and internationally, with highlights including a group show Daegu Museum in South Korea and a mural for Gucci in Milan. She currently calls Maryland home, but aspires to live nomadically. For a good spell in the future, "home" will have legs.



Ghost Photographs Statement

Found photographs.
Not necessarily lost but able to be found.
A history held within a snapshot,

Unknown.

I put paint to paper and in doing so turn the specific
into the abstract.
Face becomes ghost.
Person becomes vessel.
And vessel is open for possession.

(You may haunt these ghosts.)

Through this manipulation of the material,
the ghosts become us and we become the ghosts.

We become the ghosts of our everyday.



General Artist Statement

Much of my work has been tied to memory. How do we hold what was once Happen-ing but is now the Happen-ed? To stack what is Now against what Has Been.

And then there's that thing called Tomorrow.

I am drawn to wading into the dark chasms of emotion. I think mostly because I find in them, or through them, the ability to re-strengthen my belief in light and beauty. Some kind of deep reassurance is buried in the fear. Maybe that's why even though I watch and read and sit with heavier things, the visual of my work itself is so bright and playful, even sweet.

Footloose but not fancy free.

Simple yet evocative, my ghost series, which I'm best known for, has taught me a lot about visual restraint, about the power of less. And about how the viewer is likely the largest part of your art.

25% what's on the paper, 75% what's behind the eyes, what's in the heart.

In my more abstract works on canvas, first, I lay down the ground; a map, a flag, a landscape. Next tens to hundreds to thousands of dots are placed, this action feels meditative, transports me always. They read almost like an atmosphere above. Visually they become a flock, a swarm, a constellation, some kind of otherworldly language. Always in metallics so that this “above” is more light than color, reflection rather than deposit. They are, as I paint, my hope, my memory, my impulse, my everything, my nothing…they are time itself. These paintings function as a kind of spiritual mapping.

2024 finds me branching out into making objects, as well as animation.

And finally trying my hand at watercolors.