“Paris gave me a sense of form in space and space inside a form,” sculptor-painter Deborah Brown tells Brian McAvera ahead of her exhibition at the Gordon Gallery, Derry, in November.
Brian McAvera: Deborah, you were born in Belfast in 1927, near Cavehill, your father being an estate agent who also had a summer house in Cushendun, Co Antrim, and your mother being from Whitehead, also in Co Antrim. Mountain, sea and bog seem to have been a recurrent feature of your childhood. What was it like growing up in the 1930s and do you think it was formative for you as an artist?
Deborah Brown: I had a very secure and happy childhood: lovely walks over the Cavehill coming out at Glengormley. Unconsciously the landscape must have affected my way of looking at things. I first went to Cushendun when I was five. My father had bought a two-and-a-half acre field about half a mile out of the village and asked the architect Tom Henry (brother of Paul) to design a weekend holiday house. He based his design on the shooting lodges in the Glens and it fitted in nicely with the landscape.
Stephanie McBride talks to Mike Bunn about the craft of old school photography and his plans to establish an academy for photographers
Losing faith in the early success of her work led Miseon Lee on a journey of self-discovery, both in artistic terms and geographically, writes James Hanley