For B+H  77.3 x 17.0 cm

                pencil and watercolor on paper

                            April 2024  - Torino, Italia

• d e b o r a h   h o b b i n s

• works
  • life guard 2023
  • miscellaneous embroideries
  • handscapes
  • embroidered signatures
  • pandemic panorama
• about
• contacts

deborah hobbins

2023 All right reserved Deborah Hobbins

artist

Deborah Hobbins

 I am drawn to things that are no longer everyday experiences, elements that once were common but are becoming ephemeral to everyday life. Things like hard copy books, handwriting, to-do lists, maps, official documents, hand-written crossword puzzles, newspapers in general. We are in a very profoundly transitional time for human communication, of which I believe we need to be aware. 

Additionally, single object still life images have a visual power and  have been a theme of mine; the way they transform common objects into iconic images, my Handscapes for example. But I am captivated by much visual art: Abstract Art has always been a favorite, Expressionism, Modern, Renaissance, Medieval, Fauve and Nabis (Viullard and Bonnard are particular favorites) much contemporary art. 

There are many reasons I am inclined to express myself visually but one that is fundamental to who I am and my work is the genetic learning disability, Dyslexia. Mayo Clinic: “…Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding)… Dyslexia is not due to problems with intelligence, hearing or vision…” When I was a child they didn’t identify and treat this disability so I was on my own. I have realized over the years, not being able to read as a child and young adult was for me like having blurred vison at least in one eye and one side of my brain. It also made me aware of other forms of communication, i.e. images, voices, expressions, visual clues and cues that weren’t based on the written word. I have wondered what I would have done had I been able to ‘decode’ words as a child; very possibly exactly what I do now. 

Drawing is my medium of choice and always has been.  Now that I live in the United States six months of the year and Turin, Italy the other six months it has become the perfect traveling medium. It is not possible for me not to do this. I am grateful I was exposed to visual art early in life and the vast amount of pleasure I find in it; both the looking and the making. 

  “Nothing, or almost nothing in this world is truly new, what's important is the new, different perspective an artist chooses to look at the world.”

- Giorgio Morandi