October 9 - November 4, 2026
The Great Boat Approaches
Solo Exhibition by Deborah Norrie-Jones
The Great Boat Approaches brings together poetry, archival works and recent artworks by Meanjin/Brisbane-based artist Deborah Norrie-Jones. The exhibition traces a deeply personal journey through relationships, mortality, illness, travel, memory and life after loss, bringing together works created across almost two decades.
"I am an interdisciplinary visual artist, poet, and arts therapist. My art practice spans small gestural small drawings, watercolour on paper, and large acrylic/oil abstract figurative paintings.
My work is an enquiry, through expressionism, into personal experience and distilled memory. Paul Tillich, the theologian described expressionism as a ‘divine’ art form going beyond the surface to reveal hidden spiritual truths of existence.
In a world of digitalisation my work is spontaneous and intuitive, informed by a love of the poetic in fine art, my art therapy practice, and a passion for truth. I work rapidly with a direct immediacy, not knowing what will emerge. I simply begin with a felt sense on the edge of the unknown and reach for a finely tuned resonance of hand, heart and mind. One mark leads to another. Reflection and dialogue follow as a slower refining takes place. This process may repeat in cycles.
Often it is a tussle between the materials, myself and the complex image emerging, as I search for the way the work wants to go. Layers may be added, subtracted, and removed, and the whole surface washed and scraped, leaving a rich palimpsest to be carved into with negative space.
I work on many paintings at once, often needing patience as a painting ‘rests’ while I gain awareness of what has been formed and needs shaping. One cannot pull at a chrysalis to bring forth new life. The painting is finished when it breathes as a whole.
In this particular exhibition of a journey with my husband through his terminal illness, much of the material came from an early morning practice of charcoal drawings expressing whatever it was that I awoke to.Although the themes of fear, doubt, hope, faith, medical issues, pain, love, despair, bitterness and confusion were always present, they spiralled in and out of focus at different times. This practice enabled me to process quickly whatever ‘was there’, and contributed to my coping at the time.
My hope is that my work will resonate in others, a shared sense of humanity.
Where there is a sense of narrative, may others find their own and not be bound by mine".
This exhibition will also support Cancer Council, with Creative Room Art Space donating 5% of the sale price of original works sold through the gallery from its commission.
Exhibition Events
About the Artist
Deborah Norrie-Jones
Deborah Norrie-Jones is a New Zealand-born, Meanjin/Brisbane-based visual artist, published poet and arts therapist whose interdisciplinary practice spans more than thirty years across Australia and New Zealand. Working across drawing, watercolour, acrylic and oil painting, her practice explores personal experience, memory, grief, loss and the complexities of human relationships through intuitive, expressive mark-making.
Deborah holds postgraduate qualifications in Visual Art and Creative Arts Therapy and has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Australia and New Zealand. Her practice has also included international residencies, socially engaged projects, arts therapy work and collaborations across visual art, poetry and music.
Highlights include her solo exhibition Grief’s Resonance, commissions and exhibitions at Parliament House in Brisbane, and a poetry-inspired orchestral composition performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. She has undertaken residencies in the United States, Mexico, Croatia, Italy and New Zealand, and her poetry has been published internationally.
Deborah currently works from The Nest Creative Space in Meanjin/Brisbane, continuing a practice grounded in spontaneity, reflection and a sustained interest in the emotional and poetic dimensions of lived experience.
