LAS VEGAS, NEV.- The Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum, Nevada’s only single-artist museum, offers the “Porcelain Enamel Fired on Metal” series, a collection of dynamic works by American artist Rita Deanin Abbey that reveals her mastery of a unique and demanding medium.

This series, spanning from 1984 to 2006, is a testament to Abbey's ability to transfer painterly techniques to new materials. The pieces are characterized by the intensity and luminous quality of the fused glass on steel, with Abbey combining the viscous textures of impasto with transparent, layered applications of color. She frequently juxtaposed these fired enamels with hammered relief carvings to create a sense of depth and spatial dynamism.

The development of the series was a long-held desire for Abbey, dating back to 1967 when she was utterly inspired by Stefan Knapp's 50-foot-by-200-foot fused glass on steel mural. She dedicated a sabbatical year to studying the technique, an experience that allowed her to explore the medium's expressive possibilities. As Abbey described her process, she was “attracted to vitreous enamels because of the intensity and fastness of the color, the luminous, reflective hard surface, and the possibilities for contrasting impasto with transparent layers.”


Heraldry at Eden, A–11, 1984-85

The fired enamels also reflect her earlier creative periods, echoing the bold color combinations and intensely visual experiences of her 1950s paintings. This series continues Abbey’s exploration of the natural world, with a sense of geological time perceived in forms that fragment, decay, and re-emerge, capturing the interplay of the earth’s forces of uplift and erosion.

Among the series highlights are pieces that exemplify Abbey's artistic range. “Payette Rapids” channels the energy of its namesake river, with Abbey juxtaposing hammered enamels with relief carvings to create a sense of flowing movement. “Ancient Symbols,” an entirely hammered steel composition, explores the illusion of transparency by overlapping forms and applying transparent colors to reveal the underlying shapes and drawn pictographic images. “Heraldry at Eden,” a seminal work from the series, demonstrates Abbey's success in developing new compositional and spatial forces within the medium.

Visit www.ritadeaninabbeymuseum.org for more information about the Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum, to plan a visit, and to purchase tickets (visits are by appointment only).