Deborah Cruden

DEBORAH CRUDEN is originally from Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland. She graduated from Gray's School of Art in 1999 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and received the John Kinross Scholarship Award to Florence, Italy with the Royal Scottish Academy. ​

Since graduating she has exhibited in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and London regularly. She has many pieces in private collections and a large painting in the Queen Margaret University Hospital in Glasgow. ​

This year Deborah was one of 7 Scottish artists to be selected for the Royal Society of British Artists’ Annual Exhibition at Mall Galleries.

Captured in her work is an expressive representation and reflection of her subject matter. In her paintings of children, she captures a brief natural moment in time. "Children reflect such depth of expression in their faces, I love the honesty and at times rawness of this. Capturing and conveying a natural, spontaneous moment is important to me because these moments are often the ones that we can relate most to from our own childhoods.“ ​

In her expressive abstract approach, she also includes buildings in her subject matter, disused and ruined buildings, which were once homes, or buildings where workers carried out shifts. She explores the contrast and relationship between decaying walls alongside memories and subtle remains from the lives that once touched them.