Bio

Background and Education

Deborah M. Allen, a well known painter and fine artist, was born in Southern California and comes from a long line of talented artists including her great grandmother who studied with Georgia O’Keefe. Deborah was raised on the Texas Gulf Coast, where, at a very early age, she was exposed to art and design in her grandfather’s studio on Galveston Island. Large oil paintings and the intensity of real life colors and texture from the seaside, indigo skies, and storms rolling in over the Gulf, inspired Deborah’s first drawings and paintings. 

After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design and Fine Art at Texas State University, Deborah returned to Southern California. When she is not out gathering new material  for inspiration in the form of landscape photography, aerial views of the American Southwest or multi-colored geodes she finds along way, you can find her in her studio in Corona del Mar, California, where she continues to conceptualize, design, and create art for clients around the world. 

The Creative Process 

Deborah’s love for bodies of water, the desert, and expansive land masses have profoundly influenced her work, which often includes references of carved landscapes and the unexpected organic shapes and colors prized in nature. Many of her pieces are painted in the open air, and therefore shift depending on the wind, light and temperature of that moment in time.  The ever-changing nature during the process of each piece requires attention to the constant movement of the paint and water make together.  Deborah utilizes acrylic medium to achieve her watercolor techniques that explore the translucency of color and movement. Her use of unexpected materials define and texture the surface of the compositions; the results being contemplations of space, fluidity and light.

Press and Collections

Deborah’s work has been featured in numerous publications including Interior Design Magazine, Architectural Digest France, Melinio Mexico City, Surface Magazine and Modern Luxury Interiors California. In 2016 Deborah was named “Style Maker” by Luxe Magazine of Orange County and San Diego and featured for her unique body of work, functional art and creativity.

Deborah’s paintings are part of many private collections as well as series of works displayed in public settings. 

Creative Collaborations

The Jenny Collection is a special collaboration between Deborah Allen and Emily Johnson, 1882 Ltd.’s Creative Director. This collection of fine bone china showcases Deborah’s delicate watercolor techniques and it is inspired by Emily’s mother, Jenny Johnson, and the bucolic lakes of England.  Signature pieces of the Jenny Collection were chosen to be part of the table service at Parabola, The Design Museum’s restaurant in London. In addition, the Jenny Collection include a series of watercolors paintings featured in the branding motif of the restaurant. 

Upcoming Collections

Deborah is currently working on an innovative series of functional art and sculptural paintings to be released in 2019.  She continues to be inspired through her own photography research and colors, shapes, patterns, lines and texture she finds in the natural elements accumulated during her travels. She says, “Nothing brings me more joy than to have someone with a vibrant imagination seeing their own story in my work.”