Deborah Poynton

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Deborah Poynton
Born1970 (age 53–54)
Durban, South Africa
EducationRhode Island School of Design
Known forPainting realism

Deborah Poynton (born in 1970) is a South African painter best known for her monumental, hyper-realistic, hyper-detailed, nude portraits, usually of friends and family.[1] She lives and works in Cape Town.[2]

Early life and education[edit]

Born in Durban, South Africa in 1970, her parents founded and ran an anti-apartheid conference centre and died when she was a child.[3] Poynton grew up in South Africa, England, Swaziland and the United States, often moving to different boarding schools.[3]

Poynton knew from the start that she wanted to be an artist.[4] Before returning to South Africa to paint, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design for two years between 1987 and 1989, but did not graduate.[5][6]

Career[edit]

Poynton's paintings are more about the act of looking, of exposing the "trickery" behind traditional artistic practices, than they are windows onto a surreal world. By constructing spaces, placing slightly discordant objects amongst seemingly natural landscapes, Poynton creates a tension within her work that is intended to make the viewer uncomfortably aware of the act of perception. While most of her work can be categorized as realism, a few series depart from her usual aesthetic in a more abstract project. Her current exhibition, Scenes of a Romantic Nature, draws on her connection to Germany by referencing the landscape paintings of German artist Caspar David Friedrich.[7]

Deborah Poynton’s work at the Drents Museum in Assen, 11 July to 3 October 2021

Her work often conflates tropes from traditional art history, from compositional techniques to poses of her subjects, and the indices of contemporary life to create a sense of chaotic inscrutability; in this way, Poynton creates work which is aesthetically engaging and intellectually confounding. This quality of her work is exemplified in her series Safety & Security, 2006.[8]

From 11 July to 3 October 2021, Deborah Poynton’s most recent work was on display at the Drents Museum in Assen. The exhibition entitled Beyond Belief was Poynton's first museum exhibition in Europe.[9]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Anonymous. "Deborah Poynton". Artsy.net. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  2. ^ "Deborah Poynton: Beyond Belief". Drents Museum. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Deborah Poynton's Model for a World: A Survey of 25 Years of Painting". The New Church Museum. 2014. Archived from the original on 3 February 2018. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  4. ^ Ogidan, Lagun (11 February 2015). "Deborah Poynton: Scenes of a Romantic Nature". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  5. ^ Norman Walter, Meghan (10 March 2009). "Deborah Poynton: Everything Matters at ACA Gallery". burnaway.org. Archived from the original on 3 February 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  6. ^ "Deborah Poynton: Scenes of a Romantic Nature". Contemporary And (in German). Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  7. ^ Thurman, Chris (6 March 2015). "Half Art: Shoddy Presidents Far from Scene of Idyll". www.bdlive.co.za. Archived from the original on 7 March 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  8. ^ H (June 2006). "Deborah Poynton". www.artsouthafrica.com. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  9. ^ "Deborah Poynton: Beyond Belief". Drents Museum. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
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