Check Out Debra Vodhanel’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Debra Vodhanel.

Hi Debra, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am an artist, a non-objective intuitive painter. So long ago, I think before I learned how to read, I had an immense curiosity about what I could do with colors and shapes. It began with a simple but powerful desire to understand things, make things better, to change things, to make something worth something. It wasn’t about following rules or replicating what already existed; it was about exploring, understanding what I explored, and discovering something I hadn’t thought of before, something new. At times, I felt like I had a bottleneck in my head: a tangle of thoughts, emotions, and perceptions that couldn’t quite find their way out. But through making visual markings, I discovered a release. Painting became a way to translate the internal into the external, to visually represent a perception that words couldn’t capture. Each stroke, each shape, each color was a fragment of clarity, a piece of something deeper finally making its way into the world.

I found that when I moved colors into shapes, something clicked. I was able to translate my fears and joys into form, something I could control. That act of turning the intangible into something tangible took hold of me and, ever since, I find I am happiest when I can follow that impulse.

Originally, when I first looked at paintings, I wanted to see past the image to the brushstrokes themselves. I found myself drawn to the process itself. I wanted to see how each brushstroke began and where each brushstroke ended, to understand what happened in the space between brushstrokes. There was something mesmerizing about the way strokes interacted: blended, collided, or stood apart. I became fascinated by texture and how it could shift, evolve, and transform depending on pressure, pigment, or intention. It wasn’t just about the final picture. It was about the movement, the layers, the story unfolding in every stroke.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There were so many struggles—chief among them, the search to understand where I began and where I ended. Becoming an adult felt like both a profound release and a free fall into the unknown. It was a breaking free from the rigid and often painful structure of my childhood. It took years to untangle myself from this past, and to begin to define my own value. I am still untangling. Realizing who you are and who you are not is so scary. Money is always an issue, isn’t it? Nature is not kind, we all die. Identity is something that is continually changing for me.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a painter. I love painting. Painting unlocks a language descriptive of experiences of our interior lives (about which I am so very curious). I use paint with wax and plaster to transform colors, textures, and shapes into images that trigger significant past experiences. I look for images that can surprise me, that can reframe my memories into a deeper imagining of what is real, what could be hovering just below our conscious identification. I paint about attachment, identity, and reparation of our fragile but resilient world. I work toward unwrapping the ideas that we can heal, that the world is getting better over time, and that humans are innately good.

My education: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Skowhegan, Maine; Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California; Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Atelier de M. Nallard, Paris, France. Bachelor of Science Degree in Philosophy from U.C. Santa Cruz; Masters Degree in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, California.

National exhibitions include: Anna Gardner Gallery, Stinson Beach, CA; Artist’s Space, New York, NY; ArtShare, Los Angeles, CA ; Brand Library Art Galleries, Glendale, CA ; Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA ; Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana; James Turcotte Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Joslyn Center of the Arts, Torrance, CA ; Long Beach Art Museum Rental Gallery, Long Beach, CA ; Los Angeles County Museum of Art Rental Gallery, Los Angeles, CA ; Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA ; L. A. Woman’s Building, Los Angeles, CA ; Malki Museum, Moronga Reservation, Banning, CA ; New Orleans Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA ; Norris Theatre, Palos Verdes, CA ; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA. Artwork has been reviewed in the Daily News, Los Angeles Times, and Artweek. I am currently the Exhibitions Director at Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California.

My work experience includes graphic design, newsletter/magazine publication, and education. I illustrated the children’s book “A Story of Seven Sisters: A Tongva Pleides Legend” by Pam Marx, published by Malki Press. I was a co-founding member of Mt. Washington Childcare and PreSchool and the Mt. Washington Kinder-Care Co-op. My educational outreach includes developing/supervising an ethnobotanical student docent garden project at the Southwest Museum and ethnobotanical workshops at various school and community locations for children in the greater Los Angeles area. After working for more than 18 years doggedly supporting an ultimately successful curriculum redesign of a large public middle school into smaller learning communities more aligned to student needs and interests, I have returned to painting full time, which is my first and primary passion.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me truly happy is finding myself nestled within a group of good-hearted people who share and honor kindness. There’s a deep joy in collective purpose to fix what is broken in our communities. I’m driven by the desire to make the world a kinder, safer place for everyone, not just those who resemble me. That means constantly challenging my own preconceptions, staying open, and striving to see people as they truly are—beyond the filters of bias and assumption, which we all carry. It’s in that honest seeing, that shared effort, that I feel most alive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://debravodhanel.com
• Instagram: debravodhanelpaintings
• Facebook: DebraVodhanelPaintings

Image Credits
Debra Vodhanel