Artist Statement

I have patience. I often spend days focused intently on a person's face, as I build a painting in layers using small round brushes. I love oil paint for allowing me to take my time, and look closely.

Two ideas drive my paintings. The first is aesthetic: I am deeply interested in the beauty of light, and how it reveals form and color.

The second idea is emotional: I want to make an intuitive, emotional connection with my subject. My desire is to infuse some inner essence of the subject into the painting as I work, giving the finished piece a subtle emotional potency that can then connect with a viewer. 

Biography

Deborah DeSaix is an American artist living in Lisbon, Portugal.

Deborah was eight years old when she saw a brochure entitled "You Can Be a Freelance Artist". Like many children, she loved to draw, but the brochure opened her eyes to the wonderful and exciting idea that art could actually be a job. It was a job she wanted.

She received a BA in Art from the University of North Carolina in Asheville, then spent eight years drawing and painting the people in her daily life, while developing a personal visual vocabulary that could express an individual's connection with the world around them.

At 29, Deborah returned to school, and earned an MFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She became a freelance children's book author/illustrator, with 14 books published in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France and Japan. She learned that a children's book illustrator has to be capable of painting anything needed to tell the story--any character, place, action or emotion. Her books received honors from the Smithsonian Institution, the American Library Association and the American Booksellers Association, among other organizations.

For years, she taught illustration and painting, first at the School of Visual Arts, then elsewhere. Her favorite part of the job was the time she spent interacting with students individually, helping them bring their ideas to life.

In 2005, Deborah and her husband, a sculptor and painter, began experimenting with porcelain forms, and creating glazes and surface patterns. This work became Geobubstudios, their hand built porcelain, which they sold online.

Recently, Deborah has let go of porcelain, teaching and illustration, and resumed painting the people in her life. She brings to her paintings the flexibility of an illustrator, the thoughtfulness of an art teacher and a love of patterns from her years making porcelain, and she has returned her focus to the themes of interconnection and relationship that she began exploring many years ago.

Contact

Email — deborahdesaix@gmail.com