Arts &Life

Place Portraits

The house is a metaphor in the paintings of former Detroiter Deborah Sukenic, currently enjoying
a retrospective of her work at Meadow Brook Art Gallery.

,

ANNE CHESSLER-
oial to the Jewish News..

F

amiliar street names domi-
nate the titles of Deborah
Sukenic's paintings and lead
viewers into the world that has
become the subject of her artistry.
Sukenic snatches objects from her
memory of homes she has known
and represents them in oils on can-
vas.
The street names, such as
Woodingham in Detroit and
Pennsylvania Avenue in Southfield,
are important to more than 50
images on view through Oct. 10 at
the Meadow Brook Art Gallery on
the campus of Oakland University in
Rochester. They come into play in a
solo exhibit, "The Secret Life of
Suburbia: Paintings by Deborah
Sukenic."
The artist, using oils on canvas,
builds her scenes around reconfig-
ured fragments to communicate
about family and friends from the
past, with Woodingham as the street
of her grandparents' home and
Pennsylvania as her own childhood
residence.
The artist will reveal details of her
approach during a lecture to begin 2
p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26, when she can
explore the Detroit renderings as
preaMble to the suburban paintings.
This really is a retrospective of
my work completed over the past 10
years;" says Sukenic, now at home in
Chicago. "The images are based on
the theme of memory and place
because I think all people are
focused on memory. I hope viewers
will feel other connections as they
expe4ence the emotions I want to
expt*."
Sukenic, who had religious train-
ing at Congregation B'nai David and
Adat Shalom Synagogue, brings a
sense of her Jewish background into
only one rendering, "Woodingham

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9/24

2004

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"East Roycourt to Miami Beach, Part III," 2004, oil on canvas with wallpaper

earning.
eg
cholok t is igan State'
Univeis4, she took college courses
in studio art and art history.
Employed as a social worker,
Sukenic went on to earn her bache-
lor of fine arts and master of fine
arts degrees from Wayne State
University, where she taught as an
adjunct professor. After working as
an assistant at the now-closed
Sybaris Gallery in Royal Oak, the
painter decided six years ago to
move to Chicago and earn a teach-
ing certificate at the city's art muse-
urn.
The artist, just past 40 and single,
soon found a job as a high-school art
teacher and continues in that posi-
tion.

Revisited," which shows her father,
Lawrence Sukenic, and his parents,
Morris and Eva Sukenic, with a
Kiddush cup.
A red bike moves the artist into
the suburbs as the cherished posses-
sion is shown in Little Girl Who
Wasn't There, part of a series of small
paintings that recall her childhood
on Winchester Street in Oak Park.
Pierce to Hilton: Where Are We Now?
visits the geography and relation-
ships stretching from the residence
of one close friend to another.
"My earlier work has a tendency to
be dark and earthy," says Sukenic,
who sometimes adds elements of col-
lage to her projects by building them
with wallpaper, wax and ribbon.
"Recently, I.have toned up the col-
ors. I love the fluidity of oils and the
intensity that carfbe achieved
through this pale*."
Sukenic,. who. nikintains a Chicago
studio apart from her home, always
wanted to be an artist and took
classes at the Birmingham
Bloomfield Art Center way before
graduating from high school. While

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"Winchester — Hedge Wars," 2003, oil on canvas with wax and sparklers