On the evening of Nov. 13th, I paid a visit to
Deborah Pohl at her studio in the Neumann Leather building, a studio building
in Hoboken, NJ. As fellow Hoboken residents, we spent the first part of the
visit discussing our experiences during Hurricane Sandy. Deborah’s story was
much more dramatic than mine, including a rescue by the National Guard. But I
was relieved to hear that like me, neither her studio nor her apartment were
damaged by the flooding. This was actually the second visit I paid to Deborah’s
studio, having gone there during the summer of 2012, along with Anna Lise
Jensen, for a very enjoyable, informal studio visit/ lunch hangout. So it was
interesting to revisit work that I had seen at the summer visit, and to see the
progress Deborah has made in the meantime.
Her primary recent focus has been on ‘the Pill Project’,
which she started in conjunction with a Hoboken arts event by the same name,
which was a benefit to support womens’ reproductive rights. For this event in
the summer of 2012, Deborah started producing small “pills”, i.e. drawings,
that she sold at the series of evening benefits, with the profits all going to
Planned Parenthood. After the benefit was over, Deborah decided to continue her
Pill Project, with the idea of exhibiting the pills as a large collection at
the next tART exhibition, and allowing the public to purchase the pills
individually, with the proceeds again going to support reproductive rights.
Despite all the interesting social-political aspects of the
project, I was most struck by the dazzling visual array of the pills as a
group, and loved the chance to spend time with this large collection of tiny
drawings (several hundred), to slowly notice the subtle and not-so-subtle differences
amid the grouping. The pill drawings are all circular shapes, done in a variety
of media and colors. Some are on plain white-paper backgrounds, and some have
painted or drawn backgrounds. A few are even collages. Intrigued by Deborah’s
process and formal decisions, I brought up those aspects of the work, and that
constituted most of our conversation. Deborah said that when she initially
began making the pills, she was drawing them to look like more-realistic pill
capsules, and even tried making small pill sculptures. This flexibility and
willingness to try whatever material and form fit the idea seems typical of
Deborah, whose body of work includes realistic witty still-life paintings,
abstract works, and various forms of social engagement and performance. But as
she experimented with making the pills, she realized the simpler format of the
circular shape on a square background was preferable. I agreed, since seeing
the group of pills definitely made me think of medicine and birth control pills
in particular, but also a number of other more universal ideas, such as a
galaxy of planets, or a group of cells.
We talked about Damien Hirst’s pill representations, and
Deborah noted that his pill paintings are very regimented and almost
manufactured, since his assistants do the painting, whereas her pill project is
much more organic, allowing for new ideas and ways of making to come in along
the way. We also talked about how working on a collection of small works on
paper (something I’ve also done) is a great project to do when you’re busy with
other things. Deborah is currently working and also getting a graduate degree,
so the pill project has helped her sustain her studio practice in a manageable
way during a busy time.
I’m very glad I had a chance to see this work develop over
the course of a few months, and that the public will have a chance to view it
again at the upcoming tART exhibition, and to participate in the important
exchange of buying pill artworks to support womens’ reproductive rights.
