Deborah Westmancoat is a painter based in Somerset, UK. She has spent much of the last decade engaged in a long-term project looking at stages of transformation in classical alchemy in relation to the presence and movement of water found within the natural and built environment. Every painting started with the collection of a particular body of water (standing, flowing, or weather) and allowing these characteristics to influence and develop the processes of making.
Westmancoat has exhibited frequently throughout the UK and internationally and was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2014. During 2018 she contributed to the Manifesta 12 Bienniale, Palermo, Sicily, as part of the international Ingruttati Palermo group of architects, artists and urban researchers, investigating, mapping and presenting the story of the ancient underground ‘qanat’ waterways found beneath the old city.
She is currently taking a break from exhibiting to research and write about new ways of working.