debleavy@gmail.com

EDUCATION

Main Line Art Center, 1996 – 2001, 2006 - present
Wayne Art Center, 2003, 2009 - present
Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, 2004, 2005
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2000 - 2003
Yale Law School, J.D., 1981

SELECTED SHOWS and AWARDS

Artist of the Month, Main Line Today magazine, December, 2011
Beneath the Surface (solo show), Fireside Gallery, Main Line Unitarian Church, Devon, PA, 2011
Opposites Attract (juried), University of the Arts, 2011
Wayne Art Center Annual Fall Members’ Show (juried), 2011, 2010, 2009
Solo Show Award, Artists Equity Juried Exhibition, Wayne Art Center, 2011
Honorable Mention, Feast the Eyes (juried), Wayne Art Center, 2010
Royalty Printing Award, Annual Members’ Show, Main Line Art Center, 2010
Small Worlds, Plastic Club, Philadelphia, 2010
Seven7, Goggleworks Center for the Arts, Reading, PA, 2010
Devotion (juried), Highwire Gallery, Philadelphia, 2009
Art for the Urban Collector, Highwire Gallery, 2009, 2008
Artisan Showcase (by invitation), Marketplace Design Center, Philadelphia, 2009
Collaborative 26, Third Street Gallery, Philadelphia 2009
First Friday Main Line, Merion Art & Repro (solo), Ardmore, PA, 2009
land/SCAPES, two-person show, Tyme Gallery, Havertown, PA, 2009
Collaborative 32, Viking Center, Bryn Mawr, PA, 2007
Annual photography show (juried), Tyme Gallery, Havertown, PA, 2007
Spirit Shrines/Crete, Welcome Gallery, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA 2006
Annual Continuing Education Student Show (juried), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 2002
Interiors (juried), Main Line Art Center, 2000
Food for Thought (juried), Main Line Art Center,1999

STATEMENT

According to Danny Kaye – actor, comedian, and painter -- “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.”

I have taken that exuberance and applied it to my life and to my work.

My journey has been from left brain to right brain – from lawyer to painter. Training in the strict literalism of classical painting was too much like the literalism of the law, thus my embrace of contemporary imagery.

A visual experience of form and space and color and movement translates into layer upon layer of paint and material with a textural surface. What is revealed, what is hidden, what used to be, and what remains become the subject, as well as the process.

Irony, spirituality, decay, and the unexpected patterns produced by nature and humankind inspire me to photograph, adding another dimension.

Whatever the medium, I attempt to draw the viewer in to pause and discover.