blue tree gallery

After studying at the Royal College of Art, Debbie was a freelance illustrator in London for 15 years until 2003. “My escape route from London was to move to Somerset to renovate and run a country inn with every intention of continuing painting in a landscape I love, but things don’t always turn out how you plan,” recalls Debbie. “After 13 years of looking only, I was finally able to pick up my brushes full time and see the world in brush strokes again. I almost imagine it is like I have woken from a coma and it has found me fresh, excited and fascinated by who I am now and how I see things.”

​

Since that renewal of her creativity more than three years ago, her vividly coloured coastal and rural landscapes have been inspired by walks with her dog along weather-beaten coastal paths, across muddy footpaths, through gateways and over fields and farmland. “Memories of hills and tracks, the skyline and weather conditions emerge in the studio where I love the act of brushing blobs of paints of varying thickness in bright colours on a surface, one over another, to assemble landscapes,” says Debbie, who now lives in Chardstock, East Devon.

​

In her paintings, sweeping curves are punctuated by focal points of sea defences, boats, barns, farmhouses and woodland homes, livestock and trees. Applying scratched lines too, they become visual records of her journeys; part-real, part-imagined landscapes bursting with energy, colour, nostalgia, observation and joy.