About Deborah Duffield

My paintings shift between abstraction and representation as I investigate connections between thoughts, experiences, tools, and paint. My passion is for the interplay of all these experiences unfolding on the canvas without hierarchy, offering an indirect resemblance to the world, emerging as multidimensional planes passing through time and place.

 The materiality of paint is my creative obsession. I explore its alchemical behaviour and endless potential through playful mixing and application. My process is slow and multilayered. I do not predetermine the outcome, the starting point often bears little resemblance to the finished piece, as I respond and edit enroute.

 Travel, seeking out places that inform my art practice is essential to my creative process. Leaving familiar surroundings allows me to see the world with fresh perspective, free from habitual associations. Experiencing cultures inspires me as I am drawn to traditions, beliefs, people, and nature. An appreciation for life’s stories, be they animal, vegetable, mineral all jostling for a niche in this world.

 My artistic and philosophical concerns are shaped by thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, and David Abram. Heidegger emphasises process over outcome, focusing on ‘Handlability’, understanding being unearthed through the manipulation of materials, tools and ideas to create and gain access to the world in an original way. In my own practice, this allows me to prioritise experimentation with materials, allowing unexpected discoveries to take shape.

Deleuze’s considers the ‘rhizome’ as a metaphor for multiple and infinite potential routes, connections and shifting planes with no hierarchical structure or predefined representation that might serve to blinker our ability to find the essence, the true resemblance. This idea inspires my approach to life and engagement with each canvas without a fixed plan, embracing the infinite pathways my paintings might take.

 Abram proposes humanity has become disengaged from nature and introduces the idea that being less ingrained in the repetition of what we expect helps us see with a more heightened sense of perception. In my life and art practice, this means moving beyond habitual ways and being open to what is truly present staying receptive being attuned to subtle relationships as they emerge on the canvas.