Debbie Fish
Shared Lines: Pūtahitanga exhibiting artist
School of Scales (2017) mixed media
b. 1986, South Africa
2013 Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, Victoria University of Wellington
2019 Graduate Diploma in Economics, Massey University
Debbie Fish is an installation artist, and set designer based in Wellington. Her installations are inspired by social and environmental concerns, often using playful ways to examine complex issues. As a new mother, she has been expanding her practice beyond installation-based work, to include new mediums that can be completed in small bursts around the whims of a baby. Her pen sketches explore themes of new motherhood including social isolation, repetition, shattered expectations of productivity and finding moments of beauty in life close to home. Debbie has recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Economics, in service of her interest in value, and how we measure it in society and through her art aims to draw attention to the commons: shared resources which have been long under-valued including the environment, especially our oceans, social connection, and trust.
Shared Lines: Pūtahitanga 2020
IT TAKES A VILLAGE (2020)
Often used to refer to how raising children requires community responsibility, a network of support and trust of one’s network, IT TAKES A VILLAGE can equally be applied to our community effort to eliminate Covid-19.
The visual language of simple marks is born out of seeking to see the world through a baby’s eyes, seeing the world in patterns; the many squares representing life on repeat, the blur of early motherhood and lockdown, one day blending into the next; the notion of productivity being achieved in small blocks, the sum of which can create something meaningful.
Using the street view of Kaharore (Karori) as a base, the squares become little houses, close but separate, a community of bubbles forming a whole. The architectural aesthetic suggestive of a plan for co-operation: as a community we each play a small but vital role and our willingness to work together flows through.