Debra Vodhanel
ARTIST
Debra was born in southern California in the 1950s and found her way to adulthood during a chaotic period of social change during the 60s and 70s. She received her training as an artist at Skowhegan School of Painting and sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California; and Ecole NationaleSuperieure des Beaux-Arts, Atelier de M. Nallard, Paris, France. Debra also has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Philosophy from U.C. Santa Cruz; and a Masters Degree in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, California.
Artist Statement
Debra Vodhanel paints about attachment, identity, and reparation of our fragile but resilient world. Using paint as a metaphor, Debra paints to problem-solve. Her subject matter spirals around questions of who we are and where we are going. She works toward unwrapping the idea that the world can get better, people can heal, and that people are innately good. She looks for this possible reality in her work, finding it, sometimes hidden under layers of distraction. She rejects recognizable imagery in favor of a deeper imagining of what reality may be. What hovers just below our conscious identification?