Join us here at the EHCC gallery on January 11th at 11:30 a.m. for a free artist talk and walkthrough with Deborah Nehmad on the exhibition "Shattered" which runs until January 31, 2025.

In the exhibition “Shattered,” Nehmad addresses the plague of gun violence in America. She recounts, “I didn’t set out to make this the focus of my practice when I completed my first piece on the subject in 2008. [But] as gun violence … has transformed the experience of attending school from one of making friends and learning to an environment that incites terror in students and their parents, I couldn’t focus on anything else.” Nehmad’s artworks – described as “visceral” and “poignant” by fellow artists and critics – utilize handmade Nepalese paper, graphite and beeswax that she stitches and burns holes in to graphically represent gun fatalities.

Nehmad, who was born and raised on Long Island in New York and has degrees from Smith College and Georgetown University, did not begin her career as an artist. She was first an attorney and activist who came to Hawai‘i in 1984 while working in the legal field. A year later, a series of life-altering events turned her toward art, and she subsequently received an MFA in printmaking from University of Hawai‘i-Manoa in 1998.

Her work can be found in many prestigious collections including the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Hawai‘i State Art Museum, New York Museum of Modern Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, and the Hammer Museum of UCLA. Most recent among her awards is the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts Individual Artist Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts.

This exhibition was made possible by funding from the County of Hawai’i; McInerny Foundation - Bank of Hawai’i, Trustee; and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.