Artist Deborah Last has recently moved to the Cotswolds. She works directly from life and memory, creating light-filled work relating to the landscape and the connections we make with it as humans. In 2020 she graduated with an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from Plymouth University. She was long-listed for the Jackson’s Painting Prize in 2021 and 2022. She was Artist in residence at the National Trust’s Bucks Mills Artist Cabin in August 2022 and the inaugural visual artist in residence for the Appledore Book Festival in September 2022. She has been featured in Devon Life Magazine and on BBC Spotlight and was a regular guest on BBC Radio Devon.

She completed an en plein air project to paint the landscape outside and from life for every day of 2022. This project was highly collaborative encouraging others to be in the landscape and to paint there.

Her move to North Devon at the end of 2016 enabled her to take her work in a new direction joining the MA programme at Plymouth University. Her MA work explored the meanings of motherhood, family and faith in the context of separation and a global pandemic and storytelling. The last few years have been about establishing her current practice and balancing that with teaching a small number of art classes. Her en plein air practice has become like a practice of contemplation and meditation that then feeds into the work she does back in the studio. She now lives in the Cotswolds near Chipping Norton and is enjoying exploring another beautiful location. Her works retains a love of the landscape, and her current work explores the stories that form when we connect to the natural world particularly when within the landscape in the early hours of the morning and at nighttime.

Her work is held in private collections throughout the UK and abroad. She offers one-to-one support and coaching for emerging artists and workshops and wellbeing days for individuals, groups and within the workplace.

website: www.deborahlast.co.uk
Facebook: Deborah Last Artist
Instagram: debs_last