Artist's Statement
I was drawn to art because I felt a strong need and desire to get on paper the beautiful things that I see, whether on my travels or spending time with my mom, always supportive of my creativity. I took photos on my trips and painted from them (watercolor and pastel), took photos of my mom to have remembrances of her and to document her decline into Alzheimer's disease, and had strong visions and urges to paint images that I had after each parent died.
I took watercolor lessons with a painter in Los Alamos and pastel lessons with the wonderful painter Jeanine Allen and have been drawn to Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings and Paul Strand's photographs since college. I began painting landscapes from my photographs and still lifes as realistically as I could but eventually became more interested in pseudo-abstract, particularly stark, desert scenes, or simple and ephemeral landscapes.
The paintings since my parents' deaths are very interesting to me as they are a departure from my previous works: green and pink skies, less detail, more meaning, fewer landscapes, and one particular shape: a sigmoidal wave. This image came to me over and over, not knowing that they represent a cumulation of events!
Please contact me if you would like more information, to order a print of any of the photos, or to buy or commission a painting. Thank you for looking through my site!
Debbie Risberg
[email protected]
I took watercolor lessons with a painter in Los Alamos and pastel lessons with the wonderful painter Jeanine Allen and have been drawn to Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings and Paul Strand's photographs since college. I began painting landscapes from my photographs and still lifes as realistically as I could but eventually became more interested in pseudo-abstract, particularly stark, desert scenes, or simple and ephemeral landscapes.
The paintings since my parents' deaths are very interesting to me as they are a departure from my previous works: green and pink skies, less detail, more meaning, fewer landscapes, and one particular shape: a sigmoidal wave. This image came to me over and over, not knowing that they represent a cumulation of events!
Please contact me if you would like more information, to order a print of any of the photos, or to buy or commission a painting. Thank you for looking through my site!
Debbie Risberg
[email protected]
Artist's Biography
I began drawing at a young age, as it seems that most artists do. I was encouraged to pursue engineering and computers in college, beginning in 1985, but was always envious of the art students walking around campus with their portfolios over their shoulders. I got into Georgia O'Keeffe, the Taos Artists, Alfred Steiglitz, Paul Strand, and others. When I moved to Los Alamos to work at the national laboratory as a biologist, I played violin with the community orchestra there and took classes from a local painter. This is when I used watercolors to paint mostly landscapes from my photographs.
I quit that great job and moved to Alaska for a year, where I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the Commercial Fishing Division. I missed New Mexico so much that I moved back a year later and eventually got another job in Los Alamos as a contractor to LANL. Within a year, my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, and I moved back to Albuquerque to help out and to spend time with her before she was no longer here. I wanted to help her even more, so I attended massage school, quit my contracting job, and took care of her most days and massaged her most weeks. When she was moved into a home for people with Alzheimer's after 5 or 6 years, I went to an arts and crafts fair, something that Mom loved to do and that I took her to every time one was going on. I loved the vibrant pastel works that I saw and asked one of the artists, Jeanine Allen, if I could take lessons from her. She said that she hadn't done that before, but that yes, I could.
Since then, I have been painting landscapes, again from my photos and views outside my front door, finished work on the visions, and went in a direction of the simple but beautiful Japanese ink drawings, but using pastels, which I call my Fog Series. I am making art, particularly painting, a bigger part of my life and want to share it with the world.
I quit that great job and moved to Alaska for a year, where I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the Commercial Fishing Division. I missed New Mexico so much that I moved back a year later and eventually got another job in Los Alamos as a contractor to LANL. Within a year, my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, and I moved back to Albuquerque to help out and to spend time with her before she was no longer here. I wanted to help her even more, so I attended massage school, quit my contracting job, and took care of her most days and massaged her most weeks. When she was moved into a home for people with Alzheimer's after 5 or 6 years, I went to an arts and crafts fair, something that Mom loved to do and that I took her to every time one was going on. I loved the vibrant pastel works that I saw and asked one of the artists, Jeanine Allen, if I could take lessons from her. She said that she hadn't done that before, but that yes, I could.
Since then, I have been painting landscapes, again from my photos and views outside my front door, finished work on the visions, and went in a direction of the simple but beautiful Japanese ink drawings, but using pastels, which I call my Fog Series. I am making art, particularly painting, a bigger part of my life and want to share it with the world.
