Deborah Richards

Deborah Richards has had a distinguished career as a successful artist and designer but is now especially known for her distinctive semi-abstract monotypes.

Drawn to the drama of changing light she explores the creative space between abstraction and representation particularly downland valleys, rivers, estuaries and inland waters. She is exhibited extensively and the winner of many awards including the IOW Open, Strides Open and the Sussex Open at Pallant House.

Deborah Richards makes drawings, paintings and monoprints by combining texture, colour, composition, shape and line. Her current key media is the monoprint, developed from sketches made from life using pastel for colour, graphite and conte for line. Her work requires resolve, energy and stamina to rise early in the dark, setting up outside, waiting for the dawn to develop and then drawing until too tired to continue.

The work is then completed in the print studio working from the sketches which enable a continuation of this process. Her visual memory is assisted from the multi-sensory outdoor experience of the surroundings at different states of night and day. Her approach to monoprint enables a simplification of the sketches and it is through this that she has developed her own visual language of mark-making and semi-abstraction. The original energy of the encounter helps to evolve the work throughout the process.

Deborah is from the West Sussex/Hampshire border. She chose to study an unusual combination of both fine art and design in 2D and 3D at degree level in Bradford after working regularly with innovative designers and makers in Sussex from the age of 16. The degree included printmaking and product design. Since graduating she has worked for over thirty years as a 2D/3D museum exhibition designer on many award winning exhibitions and for many years has painted and sculpted in ceramic in her spare time.

In 2010 at the IOW Quay Arts Open Deborah Richards was awarded 2nd prize of a solo exhibition in Spring 2012. In 2013 she she was awarded a Highly Commended prize at the Sussex Open Artists Competition at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

In 2026 Deborah Richards exhibited in and helped curate 'Every Step of the Way', exploring the South Downs Way through inspirational artworks and to illustrate the activity of walking the South Downs Way, through visual art.The other artist-curators were Tim Craven and Melanie Rose This exhibition was both at Weald and Downland Museum and The Novium, Chichester. In 2026 she also took part in the Artel Contemporary Exhibition at the Oxmarket, Chichester.