LIMN gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of drawings, paintings and assemblages by Bay area artist, Debra Greene. From the beginning of her career, Greene has been interested in materials and their relevance. As a sculptor and installation artist she explored the chain reaction effect between space and objects. After a few solo shows, she decided to take a break from exhibiting and explore how to push the boundaries of materiality. She returns to exhibiting in her first solo show at LIMN Gallery more interested than ever in the process of making art.

Greene defines herself as “an artist using paint” and not as a “painter”. Starting with the simplest representation - a mark out of a tube she uses a ruler and graph paper to build relationships, charts and systems, which she then removes, isolating the results. With different paint for different reactions, she proceeds as though conducting an investigation, to see how far she can push the medium. The viewer is left with visual information but no key to the mathematical problem. Numbers become an attribute to a blob of paint, like an ID number to a photograph. The repetitive process is subverted to allow for different outcomes. One piece informs another as she moves from more to less, accident to control, rigid to organic. Greene will turn the piece over, layer it, or change the paint color.

In her series of drawings Greene repeats a mark, or a circle over and over, randomly as if to free herself from the strict mental constraints of the past exercises. She also uses her personal mail, shredding it and thereby physically transforming it from one kind of material into another. Yards and yards of personal information are linked to one another and meticulously looped creating a physical memory of time passing by.