October 30th-December 12th, 2021
Monte Vista Projects is pleased to announce Another Thought, a solo exhibition by Silvie Deutsch. Another Thought explores breathing and listening through an environment of paintings and sound sculptures. Deutsch investigates visual, sculptural, and sonic ways that breath sets rhythms to our lives and how a layered, sensitive environment can make us breathe differently and transform our experience of space.
Another Thought consists of three large-scale oil paintings and two mobile sculptures that reference the act of breathing: various layers rise to the surface and fall. Time moves slowly during a pandemic. Through breathing, images materialize as layered spacious and diaphanous forms.
Deutsch was inspired by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, who, at the turn of the century, created a body of work that left visible reality behind, making paintings channeled through meditation and séance. Silvie, like many worried people stuck at home during the pandemic, started meditating. She lit incense, closed her eyes, and breathed. Then, like Hilma, she began to make small daily paintings in which she focused only on breathing, watching, and acknowledging her thoughts. Meditating was an act of “self-care” in the face of a terrifying crisis.
In this exhibition, these small meditation paintings are scaled up and layered to create an immersive experience. Meditation involves breathing, as well as listening inwardly and outwardly. Two ears, listening, form the shape of a heart; listening becomes collective. Accompanying the paintings are two wind-chime-like sculptures that “breathe,”creating a sensitive, enveloping soundscape.
Silvie Deutsch creates immersive, visceral environments that offer slowness, awe, and a shared experience through sculpture, sound, and painting. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Deutsch earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California Irvine and a BA in Art Studio from Wesleyan University. She recently collaborated on an outdoor interactive large-scale musical instrument sculpture for the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. Recent solo shows include the Gallery at Glendale Community College and the Palos Verdes Art Center.