Deborah Buck: Funniest girl in the class

Contributed by Leslie Wayne / Deborah Buck’s energy is preternatural and her generosity of spirit seems to flow from the same deep well. We met at a wedding several years ago, and I learned that her path to becoming a full-time artist was not the usual one, largely because her creative drive was broad, democratic, and highly entrepreneurial.

Buck told me she grew up on a farm outside of Baltimore, coincidentally in the town next to where Clyfford Still and his wife, Patricia, lived. Buck’s father and Clyfford became friends and one day her father asked Mr. Still if he might take a look at his talented daughter’s painting and tell him if she should pursue the life of an artist. He did, and, impressed by her independent spirit and ambition, took her under his wing, eventually guiding her to The Skowhegan School in Maine. It was a life-changing experience, but it did not thrust her immediately into the art world. Instead, on Still’s advice to always be a student of the world, Buck went on to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, to continue her fine arts education, while more broadly studying liberal arts. 

Her career path took some interesting turns in the years to come. Today all that knowledge and experience is finally bearing fruit in the form of several recent exhibitions. I sat down with Deborah during the run of her show “Witches Bridge” at Jennifer Baahng Gallery.

Leslie Wayne: So Deb, it’s great to get a chance to really dig into your varied career. I’d like to ask you about the period of your life right after you graduated from Trinity. This was the 80s, right?

Deborah Buck: Yes. First, I got a job working for a subsidiary of Walt Disney productions designing and illustrating promotions for the retail display industry. This really gave me a leg up later as an artist and a businesswoman. But in the meantime, I moved to New York, got a studio in Tribeca, found a dealer and began exhibiting.

LW: That was a lot to take on. The art world was much smaller then, but really cooking — Neo-expressionism, abstraction, appropriation, installation and performance art, and the Pictures Generation. There was also the AIDS crisis, which had a huge impact on the art world and on activism. And all of these movements one could align with or push up against. It was very dynamic.

DB: Yes, it was. But it was also very male-dominated. Even though I was showing my work, I was still very frustrated by the lack of opportunities for women artists, and this really fueled my interest in feminism. I used to get so frustrated by the dearth of women exhibiting that every time a man was on the cover of ArtNews I would paint over it, giving him blonde hair, red lipstick, false eyelashes and pearls and glued it to the wall of my tiny bathroom. I was trying to inject myself into a scene that was not welcoming to female artists by using humor. 

But right around this time, I also became a mother, which impacted both my career and my art practice. I still painted, but I stopped pursuing exhibition opportunities. While painting is a joy and a discipline, trying to angle your way into a gallery is torture. After some soul searching, I decided to open a business that focused on the interface between fine art and design. I had always had an idea of opening a kind of creative “lab” and so I found a space and called it Buck House.

LW: You must have had a very deep knowledge and love of design and the applied arts. How did you negotiate the switch from full-time artist to entrepreneur?

DB: I knew that if I opened a business it needed to embrace both art and design. Buck House became a place where I could hold salons, host artists and designers, create events, exhibitions, lectures, and book signings. During that time, I also wrote a book based on 22 imagined female characters entrenched in a man’s world. Everything about Buck House was creative. The business expanded in a very organic way, following my interests and strengths. It was very invigorating, and it taught me a great deal.  One of my favorite expressions is, “feed your head,” and if my mind was creatively engaged, I was fulfilled.  But after 11 years, once my son was in college, I decided to focus solely on my career as a painter; my time was once again my own. Buck House had taught me all it could, which was substantial.

LW: So now you have rededicated yourself to making art. But I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier about humor. You said that your ArtNews cover paint-overs were a way of using humor to inject yourself into a male dominated art world. Humor has always been an important part of your work and your life – since you were quite young I understand.

DB: I got an award for being “Funniest Girl in the Class” at the end of sixth grade. At the time, I did not think it was very amusing, but over my life I have embraced my sense of humor as a gift. That simple little moment foreshadowed the personality that ultimately emerged in both my figurative paintings and my more abstract work. It stems from my understanding of absurdity. Growing up on a farm teaches you that nature can be unpredictable and can make for some really amusing circumstances. Humor finds its way into both my painting and my titles, and they often work together like a puzzle.

LW: You are currently in a group exhibition at The Church in Sag Harbor called “Are You Joking? Women and Humor.”

DB: Yes, and it’s an honor to be showing with female friends and heroes. Fantastic also to have a moment as a funny female.

LW: You made a huge shift recently, not only from figuration to abstraction, but from working almost exclusively on paper to painting on canvas and panel. What precipitated that change?

DB: I have moved freely between figuration and abstraction for most of my career. I am a restless character. In the 80s I painted figuratively for a while as I realized that I had not explored the figure fully enough in school. The 70s were about Minimalism and Conceptualism. I hired models and brought them into my studio to teach myself how to inject storytelling into my paintings. The show Bad Art had excited me greatly. Mary Boone’s rat pack was shattering norms. Eventually, I couldn’t help myself, and I began to abstract the figure but not obliterate it. It led to a command of the pictorial space that I had not mastered previously. It also led me to have a wider grasp of surrealism, which has always been my love.  Again, when you grow up on a farm, you see a lot of strange things in the animal kingdom, and I realized recently that when I worked for Disney, I was drawing exacting likenesses of animated figures by day and then creating wild abstractions in my studio at night.

Regarding the paper to panel transition, I was frustrated by having to frame my works on paper and put them under glass. I wanted a more immediate experience for the viewer, so I switched to painting on panels. Somehow, the panels seemed to want abstraction, fewer rules, I think. Abstraction certainly gives one more freedom and that’s what this switch called for. I dug and scratched and tried a million approaches and ultimately ended up with the works you see in “Witches Bridge.” Now I was making somewhat architectural forms, that seemed to morph on the panel, and it was thrilling to discover that I could embrace two different styles at one time! At the end of the day, it was the act of painting, the process of “finding “images that I loved. I’m a treasure hunter.

LW: Yes, I love that. What’s also interesting about your forms is their biomorphism. They seem to be animated with attitude. I think that comes out of your activism as a feminist. Would you say that’s true? Can you tell me about your support for women’s rights.

DB: Spot on! I am a huge proponent of biomorphism. Biomorphic forms are not static – they are always becoming, they evolve, and they contain promise. The curvilinear shapes are the curves of women for sure and I refer to all my paintings as “she.” They have a female presence and they are asking to be taken very seriously.

I also like to use rounded forms that seem to be bound but contain a feeling of movement from within. They are vessels, as women are vessels, and they represent the ways in which women are kept from being at the table, restricted. I bristle at being restricted and that’s where the attitude comes in. A strident feminine attitude is not always appreciated but I have never bowed to that….which brings me to my ardent feminism.

I grew up with outspoken women in my family and I was encouraged to carve a different path for myself as an artist. I was told at my senior crit in college that I paint like a man.…That was supposed to be a compliment. Even as a teenager I recognized that unless women possess total agency over their bodies, they cannot prevail. I was a member of the Board at Planned Parenthood New York for years, which only served to make me more dedicated to work for full-spectrum women’s rights.

I support institutions that are working to reverse the marginalization of women. The numbers of these institutions are growing but the numbers of women represented by galleries and in museums are still way too low. Since we are 50% of the population, we need 50% representation in the art world…and everything else for that matter. I focus my philanthropic support on arts institutions because I believe that’s where the change needs happen. Unless cultural institutions include women equally, it will remain an uphill battle. I’m in it for the long haul.

LW: What’s next for you?

Glad you asked! I’m thrilled to announce that I’m opening a solo exhibition in Venice on September 14th. The show is titled “Black Velvet” and it will be collateral programing during The Venice Biennale, continuing through the middle of November and featuring portraits, both brand new and past ones from the 80s. I’ll be showing some of those big, wild canvases of women that I mentioned earlier and new portraits that have never been shown. My first international solo exhibition and I’m beyond excited. After that, I’m looking forward to taking some quiet time in my studio to contemplate the nonstop whirlwind of these last couple of years and see what my head tells me to explore next. What I know for sure is that the last few years have liberated me regarding my process and my subject matter and I feel freer as an artist today than I ever have before.

“Deborah Buck: Witches Bridge,” Jennifer Baahng Gallery, 790 Madison Avenue, New York, NY. Through July 12, 2024.

“Are You Joking?” organized by Sara Cochran. The Church, 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor, NY. Through Sept 7, 2024. Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Eleanor Antin, Monica Banks, Lynda Benglis, Katherine Bernhardt, Deborah Buck, Patty Chang, Sonya Clark, Renee Cox, Pipi Deer, Abigail DeVille, Madeline Donahue, Rosalyn Drexler, Martha Edelheit, Nicole Eisenman, Andrea Fraser, Saskia Friedrich, Pippa Garner, Shadi Ghadirian, Carly Haffner, K8 Hardy, Judith Hudson, Nina Katchadourian, Caitlin Keogh, Louise Lawler, Judith Linhares, Olivia Locher, Sarah Lucas, Tala Madani, Gladys Nilsson, Joyce Pensato, Wendy Red Star, Pipilotti Rist, Cara Romero, Bastienne Schmidt, Dana Schutz, Cindy Sherman, Heji Shin, Denise Silva-Dennis, Laurie Simmons, Alexis Smith, Tammi Smith, Mickalene Thomas, Claire Watson, Lisa Yuskavage, and Almond Zigmund.

Upcoming:
“Deborah Buck: Black Velvet,” Cavana al Gestate, Dorsoduro 919, 30123 Venice, Italy. September 13 through November 24, 2024.

About the author: Leslie Wayne is a visual artist, an occasional curator and writer. She has published interviews with artists in BOMB, artcritical and Two Coats of Paint. Her current exhibition, “This Land,” is on view at Jack Shainman through August 2, 2024.