Natalee Decker at The Ramp Gallery

Loading Events

SOMArts is honored to showcase Natalee Decker’s work in The Ramp Gallery in conjunction with our 40th Anniversary programming. Natalee was a SOMArts General Technician and Building Manager from 2014–2016. 

The Texture of Over–Bleached Linens
Natalee Decker’s work attempts to challenge perceptions of disability, intent on creating more space for beauty, empathy, and normalcy. Passionate about care work, she hopes that by sharing her personal experience with disability, she can encourage the development of infrastructural support for all bodies/abilities. 

The Texture of Over-Bleached Linens is a cathartic exploration of memory. Each piece incorporates visual motifs and symbols of hospitalization and paraplegia. They function as a method of release and transformation, allowing for the recontextualization of personal hardship within new forms. By exposing these narrative details, she hopes to achieve her goal of opening up and complexifying attitudes around disability and illness.

The opening of this exhibit coincidentally falls on the thirteen year anniversary since Natalee lost her mother to cancer. This work honors her mother’s life, her illness, and their shared experience of occupying a challenging body. RIP Rita Decker.  

Listen to the Artist: 

About Natalee Decker 
Natalee Decker (She/Her) is a Chicago born, Los Angeles based artist. She employs a wide variety of mediums including textiles, painting, photography, printmaking, sound, video and digital art. In 2017, Natalee survived a paralyzing Spinal Cord Injury, an event that left a profound impact on her perspective and sense of identity. Her recent work explores personal narratives around disability, queerness, paraplegia and hospitalization. She is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree in Design/Media Arts at UCLA.

Follow Natalee on Instagram at @notalizard

Image courtesy of the artist

Go to Top