Tchotchke Gallery is proud to present North Carolina-based Debora Koo’s debut New York solo exhibition, entitled With Sugar on Top. Through sweet depictions of the artist’s most notable pregnancy cravings, a humorous side of fast-approaching parenthood is depicted in this new body of work. Created during the height of her prenatal cravings, the artist inadvertently depicts a culinary throughline between her current phase of life and that of her childhood. According to Koo, “At first, I thought chocolate milk and waffles were random but they were very much connected to my childhood. This led me down a path of recalling and reflecting on my younger years and wondering about my child's own forthcoming experiences. While these paintings do not reflect everything about my younger self, they do pinpoint odd, humorous, and even my fondest observations I have made as I look back now during this important stage in my life.” By creating these works and cementing them in history, the artist hopes to be able to share these memories with her child one day in the future. Thus, with a tinge of nostalgia and a heap of excitement for the future, Koo paints a widely-felt, yet under-recognized, sentiment. A celebration of the present, With Sugar on Top, serves as the artist’s step over the threshold and embracement of motherhood.

Debora Koo

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Koo’s oil paintings encompass a wide range of subject matters and styles. However, if there is one thread that pulls her work together it is the idea of responding to and expressing emotions and experiences through painting. She draws inspiration from mundane events, media, human desire, motivation, apathy, and helplessness. The banality of the images depicted, sometimes in bright, saturated colors and other times faded and pale, become surrogate self-portraits, memories, and hopeful futures. This can take the form of a carefully staged still life representing identity, appropriated media images of idealized love and romantic relationships, or food that can give a sense of belonging, physical satisfaction, or contrarily an invitation for discomfort and sweet temptations.