About

Deborah Brown English grew up on a dairy farm on Maryland’s Upper Eastern Shore. In her teens, her extended family acquired a cattle ranch in North East Texas, and she spent many hours contemplating the differences and similarities between the two places. The Ranch is no longer part of her family, but its influence remains. These spaces provided the visual vocabulary that Deborah has developed as an artist; she sees the natural world as the setting for every important idea.

“I began making ‘installations’ of farms, barns, and yards in my family’s sitting room at about eight years old. Much to my mother’s frustration, these compositions of toy ceramic animals, shoeboxes, and autumn leaves remained in place from September to December every year until I was in my teens.”

Deborah originally intended to be a writer of fiction. She studied English and creative writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Early marriage and motherhood made her too busy to write for a while. She found herself living in Baltimore with two children and her husband. 

Deborah continued making things with her hands and realized she was as interested in the visual arts as she was in writing. At the same time, she discovered a history of professional artists on both sides of her family. Without ever having taken an art class, Deborah was accepted into the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA). Her professors encouraged her, valuing her life experience and education, but also her commitment to the big philosophical ideas that inform all of art, regardless of medium. Deborah graduated from MICA with honors in 1985, and has worked professionally as an artist since.

In Maryland, her work has been exhibited at Steven Scott Gallery, Paper Rock Scissors, the Annual Gala Show of the Choral Arts Society of Baltimore, the Academy Museum, and at the former Sales and Rental Gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She has also shown at galleries in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. She is a former member of the Women Artists of the West, a national organization for professional women painters and sculptors.