Debbie George

Debbie George's current work assembles flowers or objects within the foreground and sets them against a far landscape, so that you sense a domestic space opening out into nature: both spaces are revealed with surprising clarity and with a perspective that is uniquely the artist’s own. The carefully selected objects – some found or given, others acquired especially for painting – are equally carefully positioned, to the extent that the space between them, or emptiness around them, is highly resonant.

Her work is a celebration of a passion for flowers and the objects with which she surrounds herself – from ceramics to fruits, feathers and stones. Landscape is an important influence that underlies her paintings, whether they are of particular places or constructed from her imagination.

On primed gesso boards, using both acrylic and oil paint Debbie George builds up layer upon layer of paint, creating a wonderful luminosity and depth that she reveals by scratching into and through the layers, almost like the making of a woodcut block: an inscribing that she also uses to emphasise form. By doing so she expresses subtle tonal and sculptural qualities.

The landscape element of this work is currently inspired by the surroundings of her home in the hills of West Yorkshire, familiar beaches in Norfolk and Cornwall and a favourite part of the West coast of Scotland. These varied landscapes and the quality of light found at these places drift through Debbie George’s paintings.

The still life element takes in the influences of; vintage Penguin books, wild flowers, butterflies, children's illustration, wooden vintage toy animals, metal farmyard animals and birds.

As Debbie says;

'I feel like a magpie collecting images and influences from all over and then reassembling them. I put together the things that i find beautiful and inspiring, the things that I like to be reminded of, or surrounded by. Hopefully these things resonate with other people'.

Debbie George - Still Life Painter

Solo Exhibitions

2020
Spring Paintings, The Rowley Gallery, London
2014
Beside The Wave Gallery, Falmouth
2013
Bircham Gallery, Holt
2011
Rob Fogell Gallery, Stamford
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
Bircham Gallery, Holt
2009
Ainscough Contemporary Art, London
2007
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield

Mixed Exhibitions

2014
Rob Fogell Gallery, Stamford
Bircham Gallery, Holt
Byard Art, Cambridge
Stour Gallery, Shipston-on-Stour
Chantry House Gallery, Ripley
2013
Byard Art, Cambridge
Beside The Wave Gallery, Falmouth
Stour Gallery, Shipston-on-Stour
2012
Bircham Gallery, Holt
Beside The Wave Gallery, Falmouth
Byard Art, Cambridge
Stour Gallery, Shipston-on-Stour
2011
Byard Art, Cambridge
Beside The Wave Gallery, Falmouth
Bircham Gallery, Holt
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
2010
Beside The Wave, Falmouth
Stour Gallery, Shipston-on-Stour
Byard Art, Cambridge
Bircham Gallery, Holt
Rob Fogell Gallery, Stamford
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
The Wey Gallery, Godalming
2009
Bircham Gallery, Holt
2008
New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
Beside The Wave, Falmouth