Deborah Thompson is a contemporary visual artist. She makes her home in the Tum xula7xw of the sn ayc’ kstyx territory, otherwise known as Nelson, British Columbia. She attended the Ontario College of Art and Design from 1980-84. She received her B.A. in Experiential Education from Prescott College, AZ in 1989 and her MFA in painting from the University of Montana in 1997. She spent over a decade teaching environmental leadership in remote areas of the Yukon, Alaska and the NWT.
She moved to Nelson, BC in 1999 where she started a studio practice, taught for the Kootenay School of Art and co-founded the Oxygen Art Centre. She has exhibited throughout southern British Columbia and in the United States. She has received many awards for both her studio and curatorial work including, two major project grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, the Osprey Foundation and a Canadian Museum Association.
She has taught for the University of Montana, the Kootenay School of Arts and the Oxygen Art Centre. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Reno, Navada (2002), Gallery Gachet, Vancouver (2010), Oxygen Art Centre, Nelson (2008), Nelson Museum and Art Gallery (formerly Touchstones Nelson) (2010), Kootenay Gallery of Art, Castlegar (2002, 2018), Gallery 2, Grand Forks (2019) and the Langham Cultural Centre, Kaslo (2020) among others.
Her bibliography includes Border Crossings issue No. 124. and Galleries West. Public lectures include, “Medieval Mysticism and Contemporary Art”, Oxygen Art Centre, Nelson, BC. She has done residencies at the Vermont Studio Centre, the Banff Centre, the Sitka Centre for Art and Ecology, OR and the Art Shed in Sointula, BC.
Her work is in the print collection at the Portland Museum of Art and Galley 2 in Grand Forks.