PIVOTAL PERSPECTIVES GATHERS ARTWORKS THAT EXPLORE THE FRAGILE, DYNAMIC SPACE WHERE OPPOSITES MEET—LIGHT AND DARK, STABILITY AND DISRUPTION, COHERENCE AND FRAGMENTATION. MY PRACTICE IS DRIVEN BY AN EVOLVING FASCINATION WITH HOW SUCH DUALITIES INTERACT, NOT AS CONTRADICTIONS BUT AS COMPLEMENTARY FORCES THAT SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD.
ACROSS ABSTRACT SERIES SUCH AS SENSUOUS GEOGRAPHIES, CLIMATIC DIVISIONS, SOUND SIGNATURES, AND TIME PEACE, I EXAMINE HOW PERCEPTION SHIFTS AND RECONFIGURES MEANING. DIAGONAL STRUCTURES, RHYTHMIC VARIATIONS, AND FLUID OR FRACTURED COLOUR FIELDS EXPRESS MOMENTS OF DESTABILISATION, INTEGRATION, AND RENEWAL. THOUGH EACH SERIES HAS ITS OWN VISUAL LANGUAGE, ALL REFLECT THE PIVOTAL TRANSITIONS THROUGH WHICH PERCEPTION EVOLVES OVER TIME.
A DEEPLY PERSONAL DIMENSION UNDERPINS THE FIGURATIVE WORKS, PARTICULARLY THE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY SERIES, WHICH STEMS FROM THE SEPARATION FROM MY DAUGHTER SHAPED BY THE IMPACT OF PARENTAL ALIENATION. A FACE VIEWED THROUGH A GLASS OF WATER BECOMES A METAPHOR FOR DISTORTION, CONTAINMENT, SHIFTING MEMORY, AND THE TENSION BETWEEN INNER TRUTH AND OUTWARD APPEARANCE. THESE WORKS EXPLORE HOW PERSPECTIVES CAN SPLIT UNDER PRESSURE—AND HOW ACKNOWLEDGING SUCH DUALITIES MAY OPEN THE POSSIBILITY OF REPAIR.
TOGETHER, THE ARTWORKS IN PIVOTAL PERSPECTIVES INVITE VIEWERS TO CONSIDER THE MOMENTS WHEN UNDERSTANDING TIPS OR TRANSFORMS. BY PRESENTING FRAGMENTATION WITH UNITY, AND DISTORTION IN RELATION TO CLARITY, THEY SUGGEST THAT MEANING ARISES NOT FROM CERTAINTY, BUT FROM ENGAGING WITH THE INTERPLAY OF CONTRASTING FORCES. IN THIS WAY, THE EXHIBITION BECOMES AN EXPLORATION OF HOW PERCEPTION CAN BOTH DIVIDE AND HEAL.
- DEBORAH PEARSE
VISIT THE VIRTUAL GALLERY
FEATURED ARTWORKS
Download the free Kunstmatrix app art.augmented for iOS or art.augmented for Android and demonstrate at the spot how the work of art would look like in reality.
Scan the QR code to view selected artworks in your space:
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Deborah Pearse is a British artist whose work explores how interactions and interconnections generate adaptive and transformative change. Drawing on her parallel experiences as an actress, therapist, and tutor, she investigates phenomenological, psychological, and narrative processes. Working predominantly in oils on canvas, she moves between abstract and representational approaches, creating coherence within each series through an integrated attention to concept, process, and technique.
Deborah’s exhibiting career began during her BA (Hons) Fine Art studies at Central Saint Martins, where she exhibited with the British Council in Milan and was among the artists selected to appear on the 1996 Mercury Music Prize Award CD cover, with associated works shown on Cork Street, London. During this period, she also initiated a self-directed artist-in-residence project with the theatre company Out-of-Joint, culminating in an exhibition at the Royal Court Theatre. Since then, her work has featured in solo, group, and virtual exhibitions and purchased by collectors in the UK and internationally.
Recent exhibitions include her 2025 solo show Curious Perspectives at The Mount Vineyard in Kent. Earlier in the year, she created a series of symbolic narrative portraits for the charity Mortal & Strong, exhibited at Waterloo Sidings. Deborah was also one of the artists featured in the United Women United Art Movement publication Artist, Mother, Proud & Serious Vol. II and the accompanying group exhibition. She was interviewed by WUAM founder Mona Lerch for their podcast and is currently developing her own podcast exploring personal and social themes through a creative and therapeutic lens.
"My practice explores how perception shapes and transforms lived experience. Informed by phenomenology, I investigate how interactions—both internal and external—generate adaptive or transformative change, allowing meaning and understanding to remain fluid and responsive to evolving conditions.
Across my varied series, I use both abstract and representational approaches to examine these changing perceptual states. Natural elements such as water, sound, rhythm, and biological time structures function as metaphors for mutability, immersion, and altered awareness. My abstract works often echo micro–macro relationships found throughout the natural world—including within the body—systems in constant motion and reorganisation.
My process itself mirrors this continual transformation. I build surfaces through layered mark-making: dragging, scraping, wiping back, adding again, using brushes, improvised tools, and gestural movements that respond directly to the evolving state of each piece. My colour palette is instinctive, shaped by the environments and temporal rhythms I’m exploring, with chromatic variations guided by both external conditions and internal feeling.
Many works are designed to be hung in multiples or reconfigured, reinforcing the idea that perspective is neither fixed nor singular and that meaning often emerges in relation rather than isolation.
My figurative and portrait works share this concern with transformation but approach it through psychological and narrative threads. A significant thematic strand arises from the experience of being separated from my daughter through the impact of parental alienation. This reality has deepened my enquiry into the nature of division: for something to be split, it must first have existed as a whole, yet this truth is often obscured when viewed through distorted or polarised frames."
