Artist Statement 2024

Debbie works in water-based paint, liking the transparency and opaqueness that can be achieved in the washes she lays down. This allows her to represent the subject matter in an unconventional form, a new world of imagination and memory. 

A creative tension is generated by initially allowing the materials to work together on the paper, almost at will. Then she works carefully and methodically on the surface. Shape-seeking and the resulting lack of three-dimensionality is influenced by memories of migraine aura she used to experience.

Researching the built environment, she records it initially through photography and then drawings.  She focuses on shapes that appear in the environment through this process, often distorted due to atmospheric conditions and reflections. Architecture provides ample opportunity to find an unpredictable interplay of the organic and the geometric. 

The transient, momentary nature of the glimpsed scene she records is at odds with the apparent intransience of the constructions. Adding figures to some paintings gives a different feel to the landscapes.  An implication of movement and activity both in the street and behind the multifaceted windows. However, the stillness that is conveyed in the paintings and the choice near-white for the detail of the ‘scape freezes the scene into a captured moment of time, at once figurative and abstract.

2024

Oasis, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex (Solo)

Navistitch, Spring Exhibition

2023

Colchester Art Society Winter Exhibition, The Minories Galleries, Colchester, Essex

Artists of Today & Tomorrow, Geedon Gallery, Fingringhoe,Essex

Pet Shop, Oasis, Frinton-on Sea, Essex

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Track Markers, Contemporary Sculpture at Fingringhoe, Fingringhoe Wick Nature Discovery Park, Essex

Colchester Art Society Spring Exhibition

2022

Christmas Present, Artspace, Woodbridge, Suffolk

Landscape & Suburbia, The Sentinel Gallery, Wivenhoe, Essex

Sculpture At Doddington Hall, Lincoln

Sculpture in the Walled Garden, Markshall Estate, Essex

Royal Watercolour Society Open 2022, Bankside Gallery, London

2021

Urban & Suburban, The Sentinel Gallery, Wivenhoe, Essex

‘ME AND MY BRAIN’ – ART COMPETITION RUNNER-UP with painting 'Cityscape III, Canary Wharf'

2020

ING Discerning Eye 2020

Borders, Firstsite, Essex

Aldeburgh Contemporary Arts, Suffolk

2019

Marks Hall Sculpture 2019, Essex

Chroma City, The Gallery, Parndon Mill, Essex

Summer Exhibition, The Minories Galleries, Essex

2018

Installation of 3 aluminium panels at Colchester Railway Station (Solo)

Architectural Reflections, Westminster Reference Library, London (Solo)

Dynamic City: Reflections in Canary Wharf, presented by Canary Wharf Group as part of London Festival of Architecture 2018, Crossrail Place Roof Gardens, Canary Wharf, London (Solo)

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 206th Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Guildford House Gallery, Surrey

2017

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Trowbridge Arts, Wiltshire

Sea Pictures Gallery, Suffolk

Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Mall Galleries, London

Contemporary Masters from the East of England, The Cut, Suffolk

Reading Contemporary Art Fair

Seen in Wivenhoe, The Sentinel Gallery, Essex

2016

Watercolour Now, The Sentinel Gallery, Essex

Artist of the Month, The Minories Galleries, Essex

PING, The Minories Galleries, Essex

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Mall Galleries, London

The Paint Collective Exhibition, Boat House Gallery, Suffolk

The Sentinel SELECT, The Sentinel Gallery, Essex

2015

Firstsite, Essex

Harwich Festival of Art

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Open Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

2014

Eastern Open, King's Lynn Art Centre, Norfolk

Harwich Festival of Arts, Essex

Royal Institute of Painters In Water Colour Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries, London

Royal Watercolour Society Contemporary Watercolour Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

Cupola Gallery, Sheffield

2013

East Contemporary Art: A Collection of 21st Century Practice, Waterfront Gallery, Suffolk

FANN13, Festival of Art and Architecture, Norfolk

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Open Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

Royal Watercolour Society Contemporary Watercolour Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

2012

Norwich Castle Open Art Show, Norfolk

Highgate Gallery, Highgate, London

Mandells Gallery, Norwich, Norfolk

Visions of East Anglia, The Minories Galleries, Essex

Eastern Open, King's Lynn Art Centre, Norfolk

Royal Watercolour Society Contemporary Watercolour Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

AWARDS

2021   ‘Me and My Brain’ Art Competition Runner-Up, European Federation of Neurological Associations

2012   Creffield Medical Centre Art Competition: Prize winner

2010   Cuckoo Farm Residency, 6 week residency at Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Essex

2005   1st prize in the ‘Art meets Science’ award, Daily Telegraph/Novartis, ‘Vision of Science’ Photographic Award

2004   Granted ‘sciart Research and Development’ award by The Wellcome Trust to investigate ‘Aversion to Contemporary Art’, in collaboration with Professor Arnold Wilkins, Director of Visual Perception Unit, University of Essex