Debra Olin, 2004 Rappaport Prize Winner: Prints and Printed Constructions

Debra Olin focuses on bodily coverings as containers for meaning. In both her two-dimensional prints and three-dimensional printed constructions, Olin creates garments, or images of garments, adorned with text, found objects, and images from the natural world and of her Jewish cultural heritage—notably Yiddish literature, poetry, and folklore. These elements gird the body and make reference to what the artist considers to be the constructive elements of identity, nature, religion, family, memory, ritual, history, self-perception, and morality. Olin’s work, taken as a whole, can also be considered as an autobiographical narrative, a revelation of self broken down into its constituent parts while bound together within the framework of apparel.

The artist suggests that identity is as fluid and multifaceted as the clothing we change each day. She explains in her artist statement: “I have come to think of clothing as an extension of the body. The coat becomes a thick hide, a shelter, a vantage point from which to safely view the world and one’s relationship to it. The slip holds the skin, delicate and vulnerable. Under this covering are revealed the mysteries that live inside us. This work explores that inner life with an emphasis on hope and healing.”

Born in Trenton, NJ, Debra Olin received a BA from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. She currently lives and works in Somerville. Olin has shown in solo exhibitions at the Perkins Gallery, Striar Jewish Community Center, Stoughton, MA; Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston; the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs; the Starr Gallery, Levanthal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, Newton, MA; and the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA. Her group show participation includes such institutions as the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore; Galería Espacio Abierto, Havana, Cuba; the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York, NY; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge; the Tisch Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA; the Somerville Museum and Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA; Higgins Art Gallery, Cape Cod Community College, Barnstable, MA; and the New Art Center, Newton, MA.