PRESS RELEASE

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The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art is organized by the Orlando Museum of Art to bring new recognition to the most progressive artists in the State. Each year OMA’s curatorial team surveys artists working throughout the State before inviting ten to participate. Artists range from emerging to mid-career, often with distinguished records of exhibitions and awards that reflect recognition at national and international levels. In all cases, they are artists who are engaged in exploring significant ideas of art and culture in original and visually exciting ways.

The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art underscores the commitment of OMA to the art of our time, and to supporting artists who live and work in our State. This year will mark the ninth edition of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art. This year's artists are: Yosnier Miranda, Cara Despain, Denise Treizman, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, Akiko Kotani, MJ Torrecampo, Magnus Sodamin, Reginald O’Neal, Peggy Levison Nolan and Amy Schissel.

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ESSAY ABOUT DENISE TREIZMAN'S WORK

by Hansen Mulford

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The raw materials of Denise Treizman’s work come from the waste stream of contemporary society. She collects these materials in a variety of ways to upcycle them into vibrantly colored sculptures that hang on the wall, sit on the floor, or fill rooms with immersive installations. Her practice evolved during her MFA studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Initially an abstract painter, she was captivated by the extraordinary things she found discarded on New York’s streets. Shifting her focus from painting to sculpture, she started to make art that incorporated and responded to those objects and materials. She continued her career in New York for ten years followed by two in Haifa, Israel, before arriving in Miami where she currently lives and works.

 

Another formative experience occurred while she was at ACRE, an artists’ residency in Steuben, WI. There she was introduced to weaving by a fellow resident artist. Concerned that she did not have the patience to learn the practice or work in a way that did not yield immediate results, she was at first reluctant to take it up. After some reflection, she decided to try weaving with nontraditional materials. Starting with duct tape and bubble wrap, she was excited by the outcome. Teaching herself the techniques and working intuitively, she now has several looms in her studio, each with weavings in progress. These often become points of departure for new works, but they are not made with their eventual ends in mind. Rather, she treats them just as she does other materials, as visual elements that must contribute to her vision for the work.

 

Treizman notes that she does not make her sculptures with found objects but instead from objects and materials she accumulates. She banks things that have a resonance and relevance to the nature of her work, not knowing when or how they might ultimately be used. A list of some of the objects in her recent sculptures may suggest rather arbitrary choices these including pool noodles, tennis shoes,

exercise balls, hula hoops, pompoms, and a dumbbell. A look at the work, though, belies that idea. These things are accents, punctuations, dissonant notes within a larger cohesive aesthetic dominated by a swirl of optically seductive materials. Shiny plastics, synthetic fabrics, colored duct tapes, iridescent  papers, neon spray paints, and sparkling LED lights provide the overall visual language that pulls her

works together. With a playful and sophisticated eye, Treizman assembles sculptures that are explosively energetic, teetering on chaos but resolving into beautifully expressive statements.

Link to 2023 Florida Prize Catalog