Auckland artist Deborah Moss holds an MA in English and Sociology from the University of Auckland. She exhibits in New Zealand and Australia and has been featured in several art awards such as Waikato Museum’s National Contemporary Art Award (2022), and the Parkin Drawing Prize (2022), winning the 2022 Craigs Investment Partners Prize. Because of Deborah’s unique approach to painting, she has undertaken several formative commission pieces such as a feature wall at Naumi Hotel in Queenstown. Her work was the 2021 New Zealand Grand Prix winner for the 35th Dulux Colour Awards.

Deborah lives and works in nature often painting outdoors en plein air, which gives her works their uniquely recognisable colour palette, being painted as the mood and light shift over the course of the day. Her work is a poetic expression of the natural world and our place within it, as her works often become visual metaphors for the human condition and how we go through times of calm or upheaval.

In As It Goes By, a cool hazy blur of blues and greens go by with an expressive brush reminiscent of Frances Hodgkins. In What the wind brought, the energy of the wind is captured in this poetic expression, as dynamic brushstrokes whip about the landscape.

Deborah’s work is an awe-inspiring combination of gesture and expression, and often large in scale. This allows for a full interrogation of colour and line, becoming a transcendent experience for any viewer of her work.