Deanna was born in Carmel, New York, to parents who emigrated from China and Taiwan, and she was raised in suburban Boston. She grew up spending time in her mother’s biology lab and taking classical-music lessons on five instruments for 14 years; both science and music have deeply influenced her art. As a first generation-US-born Chinese woman, Deanna sees her use of line as a tenuous analogy to scholarly, traditional East Asian ink painting. Through her work as an artist and as a somatic facilitator, she reveals and nurtures connections through embodied research and exploration and is committed to fostering ecological communities of thriving and coexistence.
Her honors include grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Asia Society New York, BRIC Media Brooklyn, Manhattan Graphics Center, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, FST Studio Projects, and the National Academy. Residencies include Millay Colony, Saltonstall Foundation, Kingsbrae International Residence, Works on Water/Underwater New York, Appalachian Forest Stewardship, C-Scape (Provincetown MA), and Escape 2 Create (Seaside FL).
artist statement
My work—in the form of paintings, drawings, site-specific installations, and public-art works—stems from patterns and traces of growth and transformation in the natural world and the built environment. Overall, I strive to delineate the emotional resonance that I see in forms made by natural forces.
In my works, masses of lines evoke various influences: organic structures like plants, hair, muscles, and fungi; natural systems such as waves and wind currents; geological strata; and topographical maps. These linear networks are often based on hand-drawn records of physical effects of nature in my immediate surroundings—like a bent plane around a window, a sloping floor, or the decaying walls in my former studio.
My process includes making tracings and rubbings of surfaces like plywood, cracking plaster, and corroding metal. I think of these marks as the calligraphic signatures of quotidian natural effects and as personal interpretations of the material evidence of time.
I grew up seeing electron micrographs and lab specimens, which led me to an early emphasis on abstraction. In making my own abstracted images of nature, I am invested in the hand-drawn line for its conveyance of individualism, imperfection, and fragility, and I see my use of line as a tenuous analogy to traditional Asian ink painting.