Deborah Boyd Whyte

Biography

After taking an honours degree in philosophy and an MA in town planning, Deborah trained as a jeweler with Michael Meyer-Ringe in Berlin. Returning to the UK in the early 1980s, she set up her own studio in North Yorkshire in 1981. Her jewelry was exhibited in several leading galleries including Godfrey and Watt (Harrogate), the Craft and Design Centre Gallery (Leeds) and Galerie Lalique (Berlin). In the course of extended sojourns in Los Angeles in the 1990s, she augmented her skills as a metalworker by taking specialist courses in hand engraving and stone setting at the Gemological Institute of America.

In 2008, after a quarter century at the Goldsmith's bench, she moved away from making jewelry and towards the construction of mixed-media boxed works that were still technically related to her metalwork skills. More recently she has been painting full-time at her studio in Berwick upon Tweed.

Current Work

Dividing her time between the city and the sea, between Edinburgh and Berwick upon Tweed, Deborah responds in her work to the stimuli of both locations. In the urban context she is drawn to the tectonics of the built structure, particularly at the point of demolition and reconstruction, using these sometimes cataclysmic moments to inform the structures of her paintings. Her affinity with the ever-changing light and atmosphere of coastal landscape has led to an exploration of layering, transparency and movement. Recent works interrogate the meaning of paint not only on the surface, but through the material layer to the reverse of the piece.

Exhibitions

In addition to private sales, her recent work has been exhibited at the Gymnasium Gallery, Berwick upon Tweed (2011), and selected for the Royal Scottish Academy Open (2012). A solo exhibition is planned for the Berwick Watchtower Gallery in September 2015.

Works selected for RSA Open exhibition, Royal Society of Arts Gallery, Edinburgh, December 2014
Works sold at Scottish Society of Artists' exhibition, Royal Society of Arts Gallery, Edinburgh, January 2015
Works exhibited at Visual Arts Scotland (VAS:T), Royal Society of Arts Gallery, Edinburgh, February 2015
Work exhibited at the Jackson Art Studios Annual Exhibition, Washington D.C., March, 2016
Private View, Library, The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. May, 2016
Work selected for the Jerwood Prize Exhibition, London, September, 2016. Touring to The Edge, ICIA, Bath, November 2016; Turnpike Arts Centre, Leigh, January 2017; the Gallery, Poole, March 2017
Joint Exhibition, 'Dialogues', Patriothall Gallery, October,2016

Deborah Boyd Whyte

Biography

Current Work

Exhibitions

Contact