16 THE ART OBSERVER August 2009 that she prefers to work with acrylics. Acrylics work well with her style and on a large scale as they are a very fluid medium, they dry quickly, and easily mix with pastels - an effect she enjoys and for which she has become known.   Debbie’s art has varied and changed greatly over the years. The first major change came shortly after university when she drastically shifted the size By Molly Byrne Robinson AN EVER ADAPTING  artist, Debbie Goldsmith opens up about her recent move to the country, inspiration, new work, and new surroundings. In a recent interview with Debbie, she talked about this transition as well as her previous work that has led up to this. She discussed how she got started, her role models, and most importantly her ever-changing inspiration.   Like many artists, Debbie was first exposed to art - namely painting - by a student teacher at her school. This led to Debbie’s decision to take a foundation course in art and she was hooked! Through her foundation course she began to explore her own personal style. Her love of the abstract expressionists, especially de Kooning, Kline, Frankenthaler, and Rothko ini- tially impacted her. She admired the way they worked; their themes, the way they manipulat- ed colour, and also the scale of the work. She adds that artists like Diebenkorn and Patrick of her work. Typically working very large, she scaled down to a much smaller canvas. She explains that this was a result of her travels to the USA where she had gone back to basics such as sketching from life. She was trying to find a way of putting that experience back into her painting. Also, she admits, she was looking for a way of shaking things up a bit within her work. In this same vein, Debbie has expressed an interest in collabo- rations with other artists. In 2001 she and Hilary Jack created an installation for the Manchester Art Gallery which was very well received. In terms of future collaborations, Debbie would like to collaborate in a different way, possibly another discipline such as a book illustrator or publisher.  This constant ability to change style and experiment with technique has given Debbie’s work a definite edge and distinctiveness.   Travelling extensively, Debbie has taken inspiration from all over the world. When asked if any country particularly attracted her she says the USA because she has travelled there quite a bit and has family there. She goes on to describe the very different sense of space - the stark con- trasts between densely populated cities like New York and the vast landscape of Oregon. She also suspects she is subconsciously drawn there because of her interest in the American abstract expressionists. She feels that when you see the country, it really explains the way in which they were working. Debbie has established her career as a semi-abstract painter whose work has been inspired by lively cities. She expands on this by explaining that up until last year, she had always lived and worked in an urban environment. She enjoys the different layers that a city offers with lots happening at the same time. She has used this as a recurring theme in her work. Although she has spent the majority of her career work- ing in Manchester, she finds it limiting to consider herself a ‘Mancunian artist.’ Plus the fact that she recently moved outside of Manchester to a rural location where she has now adjusted to a different environment has resulted in her being unsure about the accuracy of the term “Mancunian artist”. Inevitably, Debbie now finds herself exploring rural landscapes as subject. She is enjoying a newfound interest in the changing sky and weather patterns, especially the colours and light changes. Debbie is currently making a new body of work for a solo show at the Wendy J Levy Gallery in 2010. Heron really paved the way for her in tackling scale - large canvases - and also formulating an approach to the process. Like the Abstract Expressionists, Debbie’s work relies heavily on the process that leads up to the finished piece. She says this is because it’s with the process that she’s able to make discoveries, and that’s where the emphasis and her thinking lies. Through this process she has discovered DEBBIE GOLDSMITH- FROM CITY TO COUNTRY Landscape Sketch 2009 Winter Sketch 2009 Spring Sketch 2009 Summer 2009