Biography
Debi Pendell, an established Berkshire-based contemporary painter, has lived and worked in the Eclipse Mill Artist Lofts in North Adams, MA since 2004. Born and raised in Connecticut, she holds a B.A. from Central Connecticut State University and an M.A.L.S from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Since moving to the Berkshires, Pendell has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in over a dozen galleries throughout NYC and the Northeast US as well as the UK, France, and Bulgaria. She has taught artists individually, but has been more widely known throughout the US and parts of Europe for her Painting, Drawing, and Collage workshops, including travel programs to Nice, France and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She currently leads an annual residency workshop as part of Mass MoCA’s Assets for Artists Residency program.
Pendell's work has been acquired by many permanent public and corporate collections and is also included in a vast number of private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Germany, France, and England.
Artist Statement
Debi Pendell’s works are investigations of semiotics, language, and meaning based in the format of landscape painting. Concentrating on abstract elements of recognizable shapes and characters in combination with materials and processes, Pendell plays with symbols of both visual art and language and how people “read” them and make meaning from them.
Letters, numbers, math equations and such are used abstractly, serving as value, texture, pattern and spatial indicators. Trees, birds, circles, and other images are used as abstract symbols in the same way.
Often viewers mistake Pendell’s works for encaustic, however only acrylic gels and mediums are used. She bases her paintings in collage and employs painting, drawing, and mixed media. Layers of the clear acrylic encaustic-like treatment embed the collage elements within layers of the various processes and materials.
