Deb Lucke: The Year of the Rat: 211 Fishkill Avenue, Beacon, NY

BEACON, NY – Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center is pleased to present
Deb Lucke: The Year of the Rat.

Influenced by Daumier and the eighteenth-century British cartoonists Gillray and Cruikshank, Deb Lucke casts her eye on contemporary US politics. In a series of loosely drawn graphic images culled from her sketchbooks, she depicts the struggle between a rat and an ox for power. What if, on the eve of the Chinese New Year, the outgoing Year of the Rat refused to step down for the incoming Year of the Ox? Would time stand still?

About Deb Lucke:
Deb Lucke is an artist, graphic novelist, and comics journalist whose work is narrative, sequential, and often humorous. Both an artist and an author Lucke states “Sometimes the art tells the story, sometimes the words tell the story.” Lucke is interested in seeing how far she can push comics into the realm of fine art. Lucke’s 2015 piece, Barking Deer, was in the Samuel Dorsky museum exhibition, The Stories We Tell and showed again in 2020's Collecting Local. Lucke’s work was recently exhibited at Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center as part of A Fine Line: Graffiti and the Power of Dissent, and in a solo show at the gallery at The Highlands Current. Past shows include the Holland Tunnel Gallery, the Susquehanna Art Museum, and a solo show at Bard where Lucke created physical elements documenting the fictional world of one of her books. Deb Lucke’s work in comics journalism covers a wide range of subject matter from Edward Gorey's influences to politics to a tent caterpillar infestation. Lucke has spent a lot of time with her subjects and prefers to draw from life. Lucke even managed to draw coyotes from life (at the Trailside Zoo at Bear Mountain). Lucke’s comics have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation. and Heated among others. In 2021, Lucke was guest cartoonist for the four issues of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Regularly, Lucke contributes to her local paper, The Highlands Current. Awards include American Illustration, The Society of Illustration's Cartoon and Comic Annual and multiple NY Press Awards. Also, Lucke participated in the 2020 edition of the comics anthology, World War 3 Illustrated. Deb Lucke’s graphic novel series, The Lunch Witch, earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal. It was acquired by Amblin Entertainment in 2021 and is in development with Kate McKinnon set to star, Nick Stoller to write and James Bobin to direct.

About Ethan Cohen Gallery:
Ethan Cohen Gallery has represented both emerging and internationally renowned artists for over thirty years. Many of the emerging artists have now become household names. The gallery occupies a distinct place in contemporary art as a center of innovation across disciplines and countries. It serves artists and clientele through global art fairs, curatorial projects with top institutions, and as a center for seminal cultural events. Today Ethan Cohen Gallery has three gallery locations, two in Chelsea in the heart of New York City and the other in The KuBe Art Center in Beacon, New York.
The Ethan Cohen Gallery was first founded in 1987 as Art Waves/Ethan Cohen in SoHo, New York City. A groundbreaker in the field of contemporary Chinese art, Ethan Cohen was the first gallerist to present the Chinese Avant-Garde of the 1980s to the United States.

Press Contacts:
Dan Schwartz: danschwar@gmail.com
Isaac Aden: isaac@ecfa.com
Lara Kamhi: lara@ecfa.com