Deborah Philipp

In 2007 I was involved in a construction project that took me away from painting. Building a house and studio was a huge undertaking that required all of my attention.   During that year I began to collect some of the materials that were used in the building process, all kinds of different types of wood, metals, plastics, electrical… anything that I found remotely interesting with the thought that I would make assemblages at the end of construction.  For my first project in my new studio I covered the floor with the materials and began to put things together.  It was like one big puzzle and things seemed to naturally come together.   

 I completed this work in 2009 and went back to painting, picking up where I had left off. My work has taken a very free form approach over the years. Pouring color on the surface of canvas, layering the color, as opposed to brushing.  I’m interested in the emotionality of color and how that plays out.  Shapes and how they interact and what they can become. I often have no preconceived idea when I start.  One thing leads to another. I have a dialogue with the paint and we inform each other. I’m open to the accident and encourage it.  Somehow the freedom of that is very exhilarating to me. It can also be very frustrating. So therein lies the challenge.

I’m influenced by the natural world that I live in.  It’s nuances and mysteries. It’s startling revelations and it’s sheer beauty. Painting is my biography ….where I go and what I do filters through me and onto the canvas. I love the surprises of that and the outcome is a meditation to me of what life is.