MEXICO CITY.- PRPG.mx and partner gallery Dab Art Co. (Los Angeles, Ventura, and Austin) are presenting Deborah Kruger’s Plumas on Artsy.net November 6th to February 15, 2022, and in Proyectos Galería Mexico City, November 6th to December 11th, 2021.

Plumas is PRPG.mx’s premiere show in the newly expanded exhibition and residency space here in Mexico City.

Making a Difference with Environmentally Conscious Art

At this critical moment when we should all be in earnest dialogue about climate change - extinction, consumption and migration are at the forefront of Deborah Kruger’s environmentally conscious art. The international artist, who has collaborative studios in Mexico and North Carolina, has committed her entire career to giving a voice to the voiceless. Kruger’s art mainly focuses on critically endangered birds and languages through collabrative, labor intensive processes utilizing recycled plastic bags to make works of astonishing size and beauty.

Her Jewish identity has served as a catalyst for her ongoing artistic investigation of loss and adaptation in the interest of survival. At the core of Kruger’s art is her collaborative and socially engaged approach to the process and materiality of the work. Her studio team includes six assistants, most of which are Mexican women from the surrounding community.

Her current body of work is on display at PRPG.mx gallery in Mexico City and will travel to museums in Mexico and the US through 2023. Kruger’s wall murals, sculptures and floor installations all incorporate her beautiful drawings and screen prints of vanishing birds and text in languages whose last speakers are also in steep decline.

Artist Statement and Bio

PLUMAS focuses on Deborah Kruger’s recent work, motivated by the extinction of Mexican bird species, the death of Mexican indigenous languages, and the impacts of climate change on migration. Kruger uses the saturated Mexican colors which characterize her work to mimic bird plumage. She hopes to seduce her viewers, raise awareness, and inspire action about all that we are on the verge of losing.

“The feathers in my abstract wall reliefs and sculptures are made from recycled plastic bags. The bags serve to remind us how corporate greed coupled with our unquenchable consumption drive the loss of habitat and contributes to these extinctions.”

The feathers and ceramics in this exhibition are silk-screened and hand-painted with images from Kruger’s drawings of endangered birds and then overprinted with text in endangered Mexican languages such as Tzotzil, Yakme, Zoque, and Purépecha.

Pattern and decoration have influenced Deborah Kruger's work since her training in textile design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She has exhibited her work in museums and galleries in the USA, Europe and Mexico since the 1980s, and is currently part of the Bienal de Pintura Rufino Tamayo. Kruger’s work was also included in the Art Textile Biennial which traveled through Australia in 2021.