After a start in the Boston suburbs, Deborah Whitney has worked as an art handler and curator doing exhibition work in museums and galleries, and driving miles in trucks. The palimpsest of these experiences has materially informed her art. Often the only woman on the job in the early days, the one sent for coffee and always expected to go with the flow. Deb found herself in the position of having her tools taken out of her hands (because there was an assumption that she did not know how to use them), and also working to stay on the good side of both co-workers and clients, those who very often found working with a woman very suspect. Charting misogynistic seas has been a life filled with creative material of identity and anamnesis.
With degrees from institutions on two continents (Mass College of Art, Boston, B.F.A., and Wimbledon College of Art, London, M.A.), gallery ownership and curatorial projects in two states (Greenport, New York, and Portland, Maine), art moving and installations from Maastricht to Dubai, it is understandable and fitting that Deb’s art focuses on disrupting linear impressions.
Deb currently divides her time between the woods in Maine and South London.
