Artist Statement

I am a multimedia artist, designer, and teacher. My botanical abstract paintings are generated from collaging and layering images and materials. This “stacking” speaks to my personal experiences through the passage of time, memories I have collected, observations from my surroundings, and my current state; a place of scrutiny, indecision, and tension. Painting becomes a melding of various dispositions, which occasionally result in moments of lucidity. The foundation of a work begins as a figurative drawing or painting. Subjects are often related to memory, and objects I have found, collected, or grown. These materials may be in full flower, beautiful in their perfection, but are just as likely to be the overlooked, broken, decayed, spent. A second layer may contain the suggestion of landscape; mist, condensation, or debris. Various materials are built up, scraped away, exposed, and manipulated. Some areas consist of delicate transitions, others harsh, and abrupt. I use plaster, stucco, ink, gilt, and glazes which I have grown familiar with through my experience as a decorative artist, alongside watercolors, oil paint, and drawing media. At a certain point the direction piece becomes clear enough that I continue the work intuitively.

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Artist Biography

Deborah Moss Marris is an artist, teacher, and designer who lives in New Jersey. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, and is included in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Wills Eye Hospital, AECom, and Korn Ferry International in Philadelphia, and Artists Representing Environmental Art in New York. She is represented by Bluestone Fine Art Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Hardcastle Gallery in Wilmington, Delaware.

As a designer, Deborah Moss Marris has created pieces for NFL Films, QVC, NBC Sports, and was a featured Artist/Designer for ABC Carpet & Home. Along with being an Adjunct Professor at Camden County College, she heads the Visual Art program at Westfield Friends School in Cinnaminson, New Jersey. Deborah Moss Marris received her BFA from Moore College of Art and Design, an MFA from Syracuse University, and is the recipient of three Ford Foundation Grants.

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Education

Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
MFA

Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA
BFA

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Awards & Honors

Mutual of New York Award for Drawing
Ford Foundation Grants (3)
Syracuse University Fellow

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Collections

Scaife Gallery/ Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
Snyder, Rose,& Genter, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA
Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
Dorothea Silverman AREA, New York, NY
Commercial Properties, Philadelphia, PA
Pennsylvania Hospital, Cherry Hill, NJ
RCCA, Samson Cancer Center, Moorestown, NJ

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Public Commissions ‍

AECom, Philadelphia, PA
NFL Films, Moorestown, NJ
ABC Sports, Hartford CT
ABC Carpet and Home, NY
Korn Ferry International, Philadelphia, PA

Various Private Commissions

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Professional Experience

Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ
Adjunct Professor

Westfield Friends School, Cinnaminson, NJ
Art Department Head

Marris Design LLC, Pennsauken, NJ
Principal

Exhibitions

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Solo

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY
Seton Hill College, Greensburg, PA
Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Zenith Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Center for the Arts in Southern New Jersey, Marlton, NJ
Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, PA

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Group

Center for Contemporary Art, Pittsburgh, PA
In Celebration of Women Artists International, Copenhagen, Denmark
International Furniture Show, Highpoint, NC
Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State College, College Park, PA
National Drawing and Small Sculpture Exhibition, Art Gallery, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX
Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX

The Print Club, Philadelphia, PA
Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Wearable Art, Wadsworth Gallery, Bryn Mawr, PA

Please contact the artist directly for a full listing of exhibitions and professional experience