Academician Candidate

Debbie Lee

Debbie Lee, Bird Talk, drawing, 42 x 30cm

Debbie Lee, Girl Suspended, oil on canvas, 153 x 102cm

Debbie Lee, I want to be like you, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 91cm

Debbie Lee, Levitated, solar etching, 38 x 46cm

Debbie Lee, Snow Leopard, acrylic on Khadi paper, 55 x 76cm

Debbie Lee, Whispered, oil on canvas,

Qualifications, training and courses attended

1998 Onwards: regular continual professional development training including Art Therapy (e.g. Mentalization, Group Art Therapy and Brief Art Therapy)

1998 Post Graduate Diploma Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths College of Art 1996 Group Teaching Skills, Robert Gordon University 1995 Commonwealth Research Scholar, Delhi College of Art 1993 Postgraduate Diploma in Drawing and Painting, Cyprus School of Art 1992 MA Drawing and Painting, Royal College of Art 1990 Post Baccalaureate in Fine Art, Art Institute of Chicago (included credits in Italian language,

Drawing and studio practice, printmaking and philosophy of The Other and the Outsider in Art)

1989 BA (1st class Hons) Drawing and Painting, Glasgow School of Art 1986 Foundation Diploma Loughborough College of Art

Teaching/lecturing experience, workshops, residencies undertaken

2012-2017 Tutor for solar etching and zinc etching at Poole Printmakers

2002-2016 Story and scroll-making workshops at Cafe Gallery Projects, Poole Painting Studios

and Artisan studios and White Moose Gallery

2016 Participating artist at John Hansard Gallery Artists Collaborative Play Project

1995-2016 Presented slide talks at various art colleges including Royal College of Art, Glasgow

School of Art, Cyprus, Hobart and Baroda College of Art and North Devon Arts Group

2005 The Watchie (Joan Eardley’s Catterline studio) summer residency

1998 Summer School guest tutor, Cyprus School of Art

1996 Hobart School of Art Studio residency

1994-1996 Drawing and Painting (full-time lecturer), Grays School of Art

1993 Life drawing tutor, Hackney College

1992/94 Drawing and Painting visiting lecturer, Farnham College of Art

1988 Hospitalfield House summer residency

1987 Vethieul Studio residency

Other relevant work experience and employment

I worked for 10 years as an Art Therapist in schools and child and adolescent mental health services

(CAMHS) in Southwark and Greenwich (South London). I am currently employed by Wessex

Psychology Services (part-time) as an Art Therapist providing clinical consultancy. I am also an

associate member of the Digital Institute for Early Parenting. I am one of the ambassadors for the

‘Moth Migration’ project (2017), coordinating a group of artists producing cut-out moths on behalf

of American visual artist Hilary Lorenz.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2017 ‘Thresholds’ Exeter Phoenix Cafe Gallery Bar

2013 ‘Vivid imagist’ L’Artishe gallery, Swanage

2004 ‘Cautionary Tales’, London Institute of Psychiatry

2002 ‘Story telling’, Cafe gallery, London

1998 ‘Telling Tales’, Oliver Bevan gallery, London

1997 ‘Fairy Tales’, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary

1996 ‘Out of India’, Aberdeen University

1995 ‘The Book of Alice’, Peacock printmakers, Aberdeen

1994 ‘Love Is Wiser Than Philosophy’, City Gallery, Leicester

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017 Time Machine Exhibition at Contains Art, Watchet

2017 Dorchester Open, Dukes Gallery

2017 Evolver Prize Exhibition Thelma Hubert Gallery, Honiton

2017 On Paper Exhibition Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago

2017 Go Wild in the Country, Bruton Art Factory

2017 Makers of the Multiverse, Juneau projects at Spacex, Exeter

2017 Art of the Unusual, Allsop Gallery, Bridport

2016 Brut mid winter, Bruton Art Factory

2016 Masters etching, Bankside Gallery, London

2016 Black Swan Open, Somerset

2016 National Open Art, Mercers Hall, London

2016 ‘Broodfest’, film screening, Phoenix, Exeter

2016 Art Playground at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

2016/2017 Miniprint International of Cadaques, Taller Galeria Fort, touring

2016 111th Bath Society of Artists Open, Victoria Art Gallery

2016 Small print International, Attenborough Arts Centre, touring

2016/2017 Contemporary Watercolour Competition, Bankside gallery, London

2016/2017 North Devon Open, Barnstaple Museum

2015 ‘Project After Birth’ White Moose Gallery, Barnstaple

2015 HIVE, National open art selection, Harrogate

2015/2017 Drawn, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

2015/2017 National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

2014 ‘South Central’ Aspex Gallery Portsmouth

2014/15/16 Royal West of England Academy Open, Bristol

2014 Print Open Salisbury Arts Centre

2014/16/17 Millfield summer show, Atkinson Gallery, Somerset

2014 Poole open, Poole museum

2013/15 London group centenary and Draw 2 at the Cello factory, London

2011-2012 ‘Small image Big impression’ Leicester City Museum (touring)

2002 Jerwood Drawing Prize, London, Touring

2000 ‘Monumental Miniatures’, Inverness Museum, Touring

1999 ‘Tongues of Diamonds’, Collins Gallery, Glasgow, Touring

1998 ‘Twin Images’, Fine Art Society, London

1997 Morrison Portrait Prize, Royal Scottish Academy

1997 Cheltenham Drawing Open, Commendation, Touring

1997/2002 ‘The Glasgow Girls’, Boundary Gallery, London

1994 Budapest Art Expo

1992 Clare Henry ‘Critics choice’, Cooling Gallery, London

1990 ‘Window to the Imagination’, Gallery 2, Chicago

Prizes

2017 Evolver ‘Exhibit A’ Prize, Dorchester Open

2016 Lymington Open Prize for overall merit

2015 Badgers Press Print Studio prize National Open print exhibition

1995 Commonwealth Universities Research Scholar New Delhi College of Art

1989 Sir William Gillies Bursary

1990 Art Institute of Chicago Merit Award

1989 Sir John Kinross travel to Florence Scholarship

1988 Hart Bursary and Windsor and Newton Materials prize

1988 3rd Year Landscape Prize Glasgow School of Art

Publications

Featured in the following:

‘Time Machine’ publication by Contains Art, 2017

Evolver magazine listings, July and August 2017

‘Art of the Unusual’ Exhibition Catalogue 2017 introduction David Brooke

Narc online magazine review 1st September 2016

Evolver magazine ‘Exhibit A’ July/August 2016

‘Project After Birth’ Catalogue introduction Mila Oshin 2015

What’s on London guide article ‘Mute Point’ by Laura Gascoigne April 10th 2002

Artists and Illustrators magazine ‘Back to the Nursery’ article by Laura Gascoigne February 2001

‘Tongues of Diamonds’ Exhibition Catalogue introduction Sandy Moffat 1999

Artists and Illustrators magazine article by Laura Gascoigne April 1998

‘Telling Tales’ introduction Timothy Hyman 1998

Debbie Lee: Artist’s Statement

I have always found visual arts to be the most effective way of communicating my ideas and hope

that my pictures will strike a chord psychologically with the audience. My art explores childhood,

child development and the role of play in developing the self, influenced by observations of my

children as well as my art therapy practice with children. Characters in my pictures are often in

transition, on the threshold of emerging into adulthood. I have a solo exhibition ‘Thresholds’ at the

Phoenix cafe gallery bar in Exeter (9th August - 9th September 2017) which explores this theme. The

theme of ‘hiding and revealing’ led to a body of work exploring the role of the magician’s assistant

and the illusionist, and how the mind works under the will of others (Hypnotist and Levitation).

More recently I have also been intrigued to create images of the ‘Abiku’ spirit-children described by

writer Ben Okri in the Famished Road trilogy. My work plays with unconscious juxtaposition of ideas

so literary ideas can often inspire vivid imagery; earlier this year I was invited to take part in the

curated group show The Art of the Unusual exhibition at the Allsop gallery, Bridport.

In 2016 I joined with other artists exploring large scale collaborative ‘play’ at the Hansard Gallery in

Southampton which has led on to further collaborations with group members. Ideas from this

experience evolved into a series of images offering a psychological inspection of women caught

behind the scenes ( ‘Girl in a Swirl’). This body of work also influenced by the novel The Yellow

Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman which charts the female protagonist’s attempts to manage

altered mental states after childbirth. Isolated by her physician and husband and told to ‘rest’ her

creativity she hallucinates disturbing figures in wallpaper patterns. This series drew upon the

phenomenon of pareidolia (finding new images in patterns). These images are about a search for

beauty and they have a social relevance in today’s climate of intolerance to otherness.