Deanna Lewis, based in the North East of England, completed her Foundation Diploma at Gateshead College then went on to graduate with a First Class Honours in Fine Art from Leeds Arts University. She has shown her work in several Leeds venues as well as London including Free Range Shows and Depford X Gallery. Deanna has also been shortlisted for the Aon Community Art Award resulting in two of her works being displayed in the client suite of the Leadenhall Building London.
Deanna Lewis is an abstract painter and within her practice she explores the idea of traces; various intimations that reveal something has been or has happened. To Deanna, a mark provides a narrative, its nature perhaps revealing something about the manner in which it was made. Deanna considers how a spontaneous action may be translated into marks through the expenditure of materials; how they can be mapped out and preserved as a form of material memory. The remains Deanna takes an interest in are found randomly, therefore on many occasions the trace has been made by an unidentified person performing an unidentified action. Through the use of found remains, the element of chance becomes prominent in her practice. Chance allows her to experiment with means of control when creating her paintings; she has minimal control over the compositions she finds but can then choose to interact with and display them. Overall Deanna aims to create art as evidence with her paintings and draw attention to the overlooked traces around us. Her working process involves taking unintended compositions found on certain surfaces and recontextualising them in to a studio environment, elevating them on to a white wall. This allows the marks to be studied not overlooked and faces her audience with the intricacy of the marks she has captured.
Deanna Lewis 