Artist Info
Debra Cherniawsky
Debra Cherniawsky, also known as Debra Durrer, began her artistic career creating mixed media installations & drawings. She has since become known for her earthenware ceramics. She earned a Diploma in Art & Design from Red Deer College (1986), a BFA from the University of Manitoba (1988), and an MFA from Ohio State University (1990). She also received an AFA Project Grant to complete a residency in Banff (1991-92). She taught ceramics at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary and in Ohio. Her works were shown at Harcourt House, Edmonton; at Ceramics Selects, a travelling group exhibition through Alberta; and at a group show at the Edmonton Art Gallery, in the early 1990s. She also had a solo show at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto, in 1991. He work was exhibited internationally at the Polish-Canadian Cultural Exchange, Poland, in 1991, and at the Budapest Galleria in 1994.
It was a first trip to China in 2004 that brought that country’s ancient artistic traditions home to Cherniawsky. She was inspired by the Cizhou style of black and white decorative marks made on vases. Since then she has sometimes used a similar slip trailing method, whereby liquid clay is squeezed through a fine nib to create delicate designs.
In 1986, she established a business in Calgary, in partnership with her husband Dennis Durrer, producing hand-painted artisanal pottery, as well as paintings. In 2008, they moved Artables to a rural studio built on a parcel of Cherniawsky family land near Vegreville. Drawing on Cherniawsky’s Ukrainian heritage and decorative arts traditions, and her long-standing love of the natural environment, the earthenware pieces depict Canadian wildlife and fruit and floral motifs. Many of the paintings feature rural landscapes in folk-art style.
