About the Artist
I grew up on the prairies of Canada, have lived in many different locales, and have traveled extensively. All of these places have inspired my art. My work is intuitive, expressive, and built through layers of color, texture, and mark-making. It's not about creating a pretty image, but about uncovering something honest and raw.
Hi, I’m Deanna
I am a contemporary painter who grew up on the Canadian prairies and now lives and works in Portland, Oregon. I create emotive, expressive abstract works inspired by memories of landscapes and weather — the vast plains of Manitoba, the lush forests of North Carolina, and the moody drama of the Pacific Northwest. My paintings explore the connection between nature and emotion, and how refuge and threat can occupy the same place—both powerful and beautiful.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts and an MBA, and I am a self-taught artist. I have spent over 20 years painting at night and on weekends while working as an HR executive before recently leaving that career to paint full-time. I've since attended artist residencies in France and New Mexico. My work has been exhibited throughout the Portland area and is held in private collections across the country and abroad. I work out of NW Marine Artworks, an industrial studio building in Portland shared with a community of working artists.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I create large, raw, emotionally intense abstractions. They are powerful, and they are beautiful- I don’t think those two things cancel each other out.
My paintings make room for what doesn’t resolve neatly. They hold emotional force without cleaning it up or explaining it away. I grew up beside a river that flooded our home more than once, and in a forest that could shelter you one day and turn on you the next. That’s where I learned refuge and danger can live in the same place - and that beauty doesn’t cancel out force. It can carry it.
That’s what I’m after in the studio. I work in acrylic and oil, in layers, applying and removing paint as I go. Nothing gets polished into something safer or prettier than it started out. The scale, the raw edges, the movement - that’s where the tension actually lives, not in a concept behind the painting.
These paintings don’t explain themselves, and they don’t apologize. Some of what’s in them stays private. Some of it you might not recognize until you’ve lived with the painting a while - a piece that feels confrontational at first can feel like an exhale six months later because of how you now see the painting.
I’ve spent more than twenty years painting and now work full time from my studio in Portland. My work has placed in juried abstract exhibitions, developed through residencies in France and New Mexico, and sold into private collections across the U.S. and internationally.