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        Debra Ramsay (New York) (see images below) Debra Ramsay was educated at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Oregon State University. She has exhibited at galleries in New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Arizona, and New Mexico. She has also shown at the Santa Monica Museum in California and the Paul Mellon Arts Center in Wallingford, Connecticut. Her work is held in a variety of collections including corporate, municipal, and institutional entities. Ramsay has also been featured in Calyx, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Vol. 22, No. 3, Summer, 2005. To achieve her aesthetic intent, Ramsay works in encaustic, a wax based painting medium characterized by luminous color and a lush surface. It was used by Greek artists more than 2,000 years ago and saw a major rebirth in the 20th Century with artists such as Jasper Johns, Arthur Dove, and Diego Rivera. It consists of purified beeswax, damar resin (which raises the melting point of the wax and makes it hard) and powdered pigment. It is the most durable of artists’ paints, since wax is impervious to moisture and over time will retain all the freshness of a newly finished work. Ramsay also incorporates eggshell inlay, a technique believed to have originated in China, and later transferred to Japan via Korea. Actual eggshells are used, in their natural colors of white, brown and blue/green. Individual shell sections are carefully glued into place with attention given to spacing and its effect on the overall pattern. Ramsay is very interested in the intertwined forces of purpose and chance. She focuses on working within a set of rules and investigating how far they can be pushed and still allow for a multiplicity of compelling expressions. Her paintings exhibit a resonance because of her unique manner of execution, the inherent power of her chosen materials, and the history of the art form. Her work displays a minimalism and purity that is profoundly paradoxical with her process. |
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