The Central Libraries > Mid-Manhattan Library > Art > Artist Wall on Third

Deirdre Donohue

"Sevdah"

08 January – 22 April 2009
“Art Wall on Third”
The Art Collection, 3rd floor
Hours: Mon-Wed 9-9,
Thu-Sat 10-6, Sun 1-5

Mid-Manhattan Library
455 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871

The Art Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library is pleased to present an installation of embroideries by the emerging artist Deirdre Donohue. Sevdah is a work in four parts done over four years from 2002-2006. Each part is a 15 foot long banner composed of 40 embroidered collaged squares of muslin and a variety of scraps of trimmings, fabrics and threads. The banners are John (2002), Myrtle (2003), Trevor (2004) and Philip (2005). Each banner has abstract references to qualities, preferences, and activities of the four people. Bernard Yenelouis, curator and educator at the School of the International Center of Photography, will join Donohue for an Artist Dialogue on Monday March 16th at 6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor. The exhibition series Art Wall on Third is curated by Arezoo Moseni.

Artist Statement
"’sevdah,’ a nostalgic, brooding longing associated with lost love” “A War in the Family” by Roger Cohen in The New York Times Magazine: August 6, 1995

About 13 years ago I read this word in an article in the New York Times magazine about Bosnia, and really somehow knew I would need it, tucking it away for later reference.

In the decade that followed, I found that it became a reference - over those years I lost a mentor, beloved grandparents, my father and my marriage. During all of that tumult, I started to embroider again, something I had done as a girl that had given me great solace.

The embroideries gradually took the shape of memories that I had of the departed, and ways of cataloging what they had meant to me. I eventually strung together the little stitched squares into prayer flags to fly high in recognition of the brooding that had turned to keepsakes of loved ones.