Debby Akam

My large-scale paintings investigate layered space through a high-key palette, utilising colour as a fluid vehicle for spiritual and emotional expression. Working dynamically across both floor and wall with large brushes and squeegees, I charge the canvas with a visceral, somatic presence that grounds abstraction in real space. Every gestural mark registers a moment of ‘stilled action’—a painterly translation of flow and duration that stems directly from my background in site-specific video projection. This process-based dialogue is deeply informed by my time in India over five artist residencies, where engagement with yoga philosophy reinforced the union of mind, body, and spirit within the material world. Through painting, I explore the thresholds where interior consciousness, somatic experience, and outer landscapes intersect. Each canvas becomes an active, celebratory exchange between the body and the medium. The resulting works function as meditative fields—vibrant abstract landscapes where the viewer can visually wander, float, and encounter universal themes of mutability and renewal.

Debby Akam is a contemporary artist based in Cumbria. She holds an MA from Edinburgh University, an MFA from Northumbria University, and an art practice-led PhD from Sunderland University (2004).

Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting, woodcut prints, and video installation. Selected juried exhibitions include the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2023, 2025), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, and multiple editions of Printfest, Ulverston.

Akam exhibits extensively both across the UK and internationally. Recent and upcoming projects include the touring exhibition Adolescere at One Gallery, L’Aquila, Italy (2025–2026), and a group exhibition at Les Liens ARTOTS, Netherlands (2026). Five consecutive artist residencies at the Suthra International Expo in Kerala, India (2020–2025).

colour, abstract expressionism, gestural painting, painting as meditation, sense of time and place, ecology, celebration, mutability, renewal, vernacular