Debby Akam

Debby Akam's richly coloured canvases and woodcut prints explore the formation of a personal visual language based on investigations of layered space created through the dynamics of colour relationships and gestural marks. Understated representational cues are sometimes discernable: fragments of buildings, interiors, elements found in natural environments in the English Lake District are juxtaposed with motifs taken from printed textiles, or photographs of a childhood spent in Borneo. The work reflects on some aspects of Abstract Expressionism with its emphasis on paint as a non- verbal language, and the importance of process and improvisation including the use of craft techniques and semi - random processes such as wax- resist, printing and frottage (rubbing). 

The artist studied Fine Art at Edinburgh University, before achieving a practice- based PhD Digital Art in the Rural Environment. from The University of Sunderland in 2004. Her prints were included in the International Print Biennale, Newcastle, and in 2020 she undertook a residency at Tasara Centre for textile arts, Beypore, India.

October 2022

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