Artist of the Month, November 2024 - Deborah Adair

Deborah studied at the Belfast School of Art, graduating in 2022. Working primarily in oils, she utilises photography, digitally broken-down imagery and collage to create paintings. In her work, Deborah explores how interaction happen between different mediums, and she imbeds and imprints carefully chosen materials and sometimes tiny objects. She hopes that her work evokes a pause for contemplation, to focus, not on any conflict or political agenda, but on the resilience and compassion of the human spirit.

Starfish, Kabul is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Art Collection. In August 2021, allied troops evacuated hundreds of people seeking asylum from Kabul Airport, Afghanistan. The piece, a pyramidal collage made up of 10 individual paintings, is based upon an image of a 16-day old baby girl being handed to a US marine. The image evokes expressions of care and is a testimony to human compassion.