John Natsoulas Gallery’s new exhibition showcases the condition of being ‘Out of Place’
Artist and UC Davis painting instructor Deirdre White explores themes of belonging versus displacement and burden versus lightness in her latest solo exhibition
By HELENA BIRBROWER — arts@theaggie.org
From Sept. 30 to Oct. 24, Davis’ John Natsoulas Gallery is hosting “Out of Place,” a collection of UC Davis painting instructor Deirdre White’s recent work. The exhibition is open to the public and admission is free. An opening reception, also free and open to the public, will take place Oct. 9 from 7 to 9 p.m.
White describes her work as “confluences of events, memories, and personal narrative about living in the American West,” and never considered a different career for herself. When she discovered the fine arts, everything seemed to click into place.
“I started working with this subject matter a little over 10 years ago,” White said. “I started thinking about it the year my mother died. I was experiencing a period of grief, and during that time there was a huge [surge] of evictions in San Francisco."
As White began to process her personal loss, she also contended with the collective loss marking the streets of her city, in the form of San Francisco’s unhoused population.
“I would see people with these carts wrapped up with blankets and their belongings, bound with ropes and threads and textiles,” White said. “It reminded me of paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Connecting the visual imagery to art history […] was my way of having a place to put those things that were so painful.”
In Baroque and Renaissance tradition, painters would often use heavy drapery to signify grief and suffering. The heavy folds were meant to represent the emotional burden of loss.
With these connections in mind, White began painting.
“I needed someplace to put these feelings of grief for my city,” White said. “It wasn’t just about my personal loss.”
Although she aims to use the burden of homelessness as a subject, White doesn’t want to exploit actual people.
“I don’t use the people at all, really, as a subject matter,” White said. “I’m [more] interested in the manifestations of their world in the bundles that they carry.”
This is a matter that hits close to home for gallery owner John Natsoulas. Natsoulas has a background in human rights advocacy, and since his gallery’s opening in 1986, has often hosted exhibitions that bring attention to prominent social issues.
“What Deirdre has done here is identify something really important,” Natsoulas said. “People are gathering up their belongings, pushing them in a grocery cart, and living on the streets, and this is something we’re trying to hide. We don’t want to glorify it. We don’t want to normalize it. But here it is. It’s all around me.”
Every year for the past three years, Natsoulas has hired an unhoused person to work in his gallery, trying to do his part to help individuals experiencing homelessness. He continues to make an effort to acknowledge and support the unhoused population of Davis.
“This [exhibition] is all about survival,” Natsoulas said. “We’re all just trying to survive in different ways. I hope [viewers] really look at it. I hope they read the titles. And most of all, I hope they’re aware that they can make a difference.”
Written by: Helena Birbrower — arts@theaggie.org