Rooted in daily
observation and informed by art history, Deborah Lerner sees
painting as a generative act. Her sustained attention to surface, colour, and
light draws focus to the overlooked urban environment with pavement cracks or city
shadows often forming the starting point of a work. These modest details are
then transformed through the act of painting, using a variety of techniques
such as sanding, taping, wiping, scuffing, and printing. Lerner's use of shape
and line remain suggestive of the urban environment but through her material
experiments she interweaves values such as subtlety and care. Within each
finished work, nuance takes precedence over the brash, quietness is given
weight and opposing ideas are held momentarily in balance.