Deborah studied at Chelsea School of Art from 1974 -78 leaving with a BA Fine Art Hons followed by a three year post graduate course at the National Film School. After leaving college she worked for 15 or so years as a designer in the British film and television industry. Wanting to be more home-based to spend time with her daughter, she transferred her design skills to gardens, working as a garden designer until moving to Hay 5 years ago. Latterly with more free time, and before lockdown, she was able to return to her first love - painting!
The Lockdown of 2020 brought new challenges of longing for family contact and holidays in the sun. She has reflected on how naive she was as the pandemic began. On week thirteen she painted a picture she later called Isolation. Most summers she spends on the beach and that is her painting inspiration. She looked at this week 13 painting and though the colours were the same, and the subject matter the same, it seemed that it was no longer about sun, sea, sand but about loneliness. She couldn't paint again for many months. At the end of the Summer she was able to see her daughter but noticed she didn’t hug her. A world where we didn’t hug is not something she could envisage happily. It forced her to return back to her studio, to painting. The series that emerged are about her fear of a no-touch world.
Deborah will be in the gallery on the morning of Thursday, 6th May
