Outside the Box Hallway Gallery
Deborah Floden
Quiet Alchemy
September 2 - 30, 2025
Floden explores the quiet power of vessels—both physical and metaphorical—as containers for memory, transformation, and presence. Through objects shaped by human touch, she invites the viewer into moments of stillness and reflection. These vessels contain both fragility and resilience, captured in the act of repair. Light is vital in illuminating textures and breathing life into forms. These works are oil on linen, painted directly from life. This close observation allows her to remain attuned to subtle shifts in natural light, texture, and presence. She paints in the technique of renaissance masters building slowly, layer upon layer. This focus on stillness and quiet arises from the artists own experience of a traumatic accident that abruptly changed the course of her life. Once a competitive athlete, she was suddenly confined to a slower, contemplative existence during recovery. The still life became a metaphor for this new way of being—an invitation to find meaning and beauty
in rest, in subtlety, and in the impermanence of life. These works are a meditation on endurance, imperfection, and the connections between materiality and spirit.
