DEBORAH
DURBAN
ARTIST
STATEMENT & RESUME
Address: PO Box 790376, Virgin, Utah 84779
Tel:(435)
635 1576.
Email: debdurban@infowest.com
Work-in-progress
WESTERLY SKIES
Since moving 20 minutes south of Zion National Park, the canyon opens up to the big sky. I have so been enamored with re-visiting the extraordinary element that surrounds us. With the fantastic views from my studio I embarked on a daily homage to the sky – 365 West project. At 3pm daily, wherever I am in the world I would draw or paint on a postcard the westerly sky, for a period of one year. The pieces are sewn together in months and assembled as an installation and when not on display the piece will live in a handmade case.
In a similar theme of the sky - the solstice and equinox can be clearly witnessed here in the west. In 2010-11 I embarked on a 4-piece project – painting the distant West Temple and its sky, hourly over 24 hours around the two solstices and two equinoxes. They show how the same scene and place can dramatically change through one day and through the seasons.
Other Work-in-progress:
BED PROJECT
“The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”
Charles Caleb Colton
As Human Beings one third of life is spent in, on and using a bed in some form: we can be conceived and born in a bed, we sleep in a bed, daily and most of us die in a bed.
Using mixed-media and book techniques, I am currently evolving and exploring the human condition through the word ‘BED’ as part of the titles: ‘BED’ used within words, as a word or within sayings or sentences. The new works are self supported mixed media ‘quilts’ or sculptures. This I suspect is a life-long project.
Other Works
NARRATIVES AND BOOK ARTS
Using bookmaking techniques and journaling I am making new works that derive larger pieces out of many smaller pieces. I keep diaries and sketchbooks of events, collecting ephemera and recording experiences, sometimes for a pre-determined number of days or for a particular event or time. I work on smaller individual artworks, using the notes and objects and combine everything together into a large final piece or art book.
"The
Virgin River: A Journal of Zion”,
was selected for the 'Zion National Park Centennial Art Exhibit: A Century
of Sanctuary’
in 2009 in Utah and ‘Drawing on Nature: Nature Journal
Exhibit’ at the New Mexico
Museum of Natural History, Albuquerque, NM.
FIGURATIVE
Life drawing is an artist’s ‘everyday’ practice. Similar to musicians playing scales, I try to life-draw on a weekly basis.
PORTRAITS
Painting portraits is a new and on-going direction and definitely early in the journey. I have used words and other images to place the sitter in ‘their own moment in time’.
LANDSCAPES
“To stripe a surface serves to distinguish it, to point it out, to oppose it or associate it with another surface, and thus to classify it, to keep an eye on it, to verify it, even to censor it.”
‘The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes’ by Michel Pastoreau.
My work was a direct result
of my primal reaction to a landscape: in particular the desert landscape of
the South West. I found empathy with the rocky red ochre's & big blue
skies; in contrast to the English muted tones of my youth. Many of my
paintings have an ‘optical’ layer of fine stripes, overlaying the main work,
some over the whole painting – others only in one section. Both the lines
and the color play within the painting create visual vibrations against the
work and establishing an ‘energetic’ connection between the work and the
viewer.
Landsticks: a three-dimensional approach to landscape painting on a wooden rectangular block creating a ‘landscape in the round’.
Splicers: Mixed media artworks using photographic materials, monotypes, paint & drawing. Two photographic landscapes spliced together and placed on the hand-made background to make a 3rd ‘virtual’ landscape which is a mixture of both photos and the imaginary drawn one.
PUBLICATIONS
FEATURED IN THE FOLLOWING
2009 WRITING AWAY: A creative guide to awakening the journal-writing traveler, by Lavinia Spalding. Featured Artist. Published by Travelers Tales. LA Times top 100 Travel books, 2009.
2009 SOJOURNS: JOURNAL. MEMORY. LAND. Winter/spring 2009. Featured artist. Published by the Peaks, Plateaus & Canyons Association.
2008 A CENTURY OF SANCTUARY. Published by the Zion Canyon History Association.
EXHIBITIONS
2011 MARKING TIME Canyon Community Center, Springdale, UT. Solo show
2010 DRAWING ON NATURE: NATURE JOURNAL EXHIBIT. New Mexico Museum of Natural History, Albuquerque, NM. Group Show
2009 DIVERSITY OF WOMEN: UTAH WOMEN ARTIST EXHIBIT. Utah Cultural Celebration Center. SLC, UT. Group show
2009 CEDAR CITY ANNUAL ART INVITATIONAL. Braithwaite Gallery, Cedar City, UT. Group show
2008 HOLIDAY SHOW. Blue Sage Gallery, Cedar City, UT. Group show
2008 OPENINGS. Blue Sage Gallery, Cedar City, UT. 2-person show
2008 ANNUAL SPRING SALON. Springville Museum of Art, Springville UT. Group show
2008-9 ZION PARK CENTENNIAL ART EXHIBIT: A CENTURY OF SANCTUARY. St. George Museum of Art, UT. Juried group show.
2007 EARTH, WIND, WATER FIRE. Canyon Community Center, Springdale, UT. Group Show. Prize winner
2007 CEDAR CITY 64TH ANNUAL JURIED SHOW. Braithewaite Gallery, SUU, UT. Group Show. Prize winner
2006 COMMUNITY. Canyon Community Center, Springdale, UT. Group Show
2005 OPEN STUDIO SHOW. Bit & Spur Restaurant, Springdale, UT. Group Show
2004 PAINTERS OF ZION. Worthington Gallery, Springdale UT. Group Show
2004 REGIONAL JURIED SHOW. St. George Art Museum, UT. Group Show
2003 EARTHLINES. Bit & Spur Restaurant, Springdale, UT. Solo Show
2003 ZION CANYON ARTISTS SHOW. The Utah Arts Council, Glendinning Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT. Group Show
2002 3 WOMAN SHOW. Datura Gallery, Coyote Art Village, Kayenta.
2002 ART-IN-THE-PARK. St. George, UT. 1st Prize for Acrylic s
2001-02 EARTHLINES. Balance Gallery, Philadelphia Pa. Solo show
2001 SMALL WORKS VII. 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia Pa. Group show
2001 JAPANESE ASSEMBLAGES. Spring Mill Café, Conshohoken, Pa.
2001 EARTHLINES. 3rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia Pa. Solo show
2001 PLASTICS CLUB. Philadelphia. Group show
2001 CHELTENHAM CENTER FOR THE ARTS. Philadelphia. Faculty Show
2001 UNIVERSITY CITY ARTS LEAGUE. Philadelphia. Faculty show
2001 MAIN LINE ART CENTER. Haverford, Pa. Faculty show
2000 SMALL WORKS VI. 3rd Street Gallery. Group Show
2000 SUMMER SOLSTICE. 3rd Street Gallery. Group Show
2000 A LINE IN TIME. 3rd Street Gallery. Group Show
1999 LABYRINTHS & NARRATIVES. 3rd Street Gallery. 2 Person show
1999 3RD ST. 5 ON 2ND ST. 3rd Street Gallery. New Members Group show
1999 PERKINS MEMBERS & FACULTY ANNUAL SHOW. NJ. Group Show
1998 SMALL WORKS V. 3rd Street Gallery. Group Show
1998 MARKHEIM ART CENTRE ANNUAL JURIED SHOW. NJ. Group Show Prize winner.
1998 PERKINS MEMBERS & FACULTY ANNUAL SHOW. NJ. Group Show
1997 PERKINS MEMBERS & FACULTY ANNUAL SHOW. NJ. Group Show
GALLERIES AND NEW SHOWS
2011 MARKING TIME Canyon Community Center, Springdale, UT. May – June 2011
WALKING
STICK GALLERY, Springdale, UT. Artist
DAVID PETITT GALLERY, Springdale, UT. Artist
THAI SAPA RESTAURANT, Springdale, UT. Artist
RESUME
UNDER-THE-EAVES INN, Springdale UT. Owner
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, SLC. Architecture Dept. Visiting critic
PENSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS (PAFA), Philadelphia. Juror
Student show
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, Philadelphia, Architecture Dept. Visiting critic
CONSHOHOKEN ARTS LEAGUE. Philadelphia. Faculty teacher
MAIN LINE ART CENTER. Haverford, PA. Faculty teacher
UNIVERSITY CITY ARTS LEAGUE. Philadelphia. Faculty teacher
3RD STREET GALLERY. Philadelphia. Artist Co-op. Artist/Director
DZIKO Brighton, UK. African Art retailer, President
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, UK. Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE), Art
& Design
RE:ACTION THEATRE CO. Brighton Sx., UK . Scenery Director
GENERAL ART & DESIGN, Eastbourne College of Arts & Technology, UK.
Professor
FREELANCE GRAPHIC DESIGNER
BRIGHTON POLYTECHNIC (UNIVERSITY), UK. BA Hons. Graphic Design/Illustration,
2.1
WIMBLEDON SCHOOL OF ART, London, UK. Foundation Course
Biography
Painting3-Dimensional
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