"I create intuitive, layered paintings using acrylic and mixed media, building surfaces through repeated acts of adding, taking away, and reworking. Incorporating tactile materials to create texture and depth, each piece holds a sense of history and transformation. Structured yet organic, my compositions explore balance, relationship, and the tension between separation and connection. Rooted in themes of presence, vitality, and belonging, these works reflect a deep engagement with process as both a creative and grounding force. Through colour, rhythm, and layered form, I aim to create paintings that feel both steadying and expansive, inviting a quiet connection with the self and the surrounding world."
Deb Chaney
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia / Works in Gabriola Island, British Columbia
Deb Chaney is a contemporary abstract artist based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The process of creating her multilayered mixed media paintings is a healing act. Her work appears in corporate and private collections worldwide, in public art, TV, and film. She recently completed West Coast Abstracts, a large-scale tile installation, and has been named in the media as one of Vancouver’s top artists to watch. Her art embodies well-being, creativity, and transformative presence.
Deb Chaney is a Canadian abstract painter based on the west coast of British Columbia. Working in acrylic and mixed media, she approaches painting as a practice of inner transformation, presence, and return to the authentic self. Her work explores healing, emotional resonance, and the ways the creative process can restore balance and well-being.
Raised in Vancouver and shaped by a lifelong relationship with the nature of the Pacific coast, Chaney earned a B.Sc. in Earth and Ocean Sciences from the University of Victoria. These experiences continue to inform the tactile surfaces, structural compositions, and earth-centred palettes present in her work.
Her intuitive, materially driven process incorporates layered paint, sand, coffee grounds, drawing media, collage, and repeated reworking of the surface. In her current body of work, Chaney uses abstraction to investigate how separate forms coexist, influence one another, and retain their own identity within a larger whole.
In 2021, Chaney completed West Coast Abstracts, a major public art installation commissioned through the City of North Vancouver Public Art Program and Crest Adera Projects Ltd. The installation comprises four large-scale exterior ceramic tile murals translated from her original paintings. Her recent solo exhibition, The Drishti Experience—Capturing the Frequency of My Well-Being, was presented at the Amelia Douglas Gallery in New Westminster in 2024–2025.
Chaney’s work has been featured in publications including Vancouver Magazine, the Vancouver Sun, What Women Create, and Style at Home. Her paintings are held in private and corporate collections internationally and have appeared in film and television productions.
You'll like Deb Chaney if...
You’re drawn to richly layered abstract paintings that bring colour, texture and a sense of calm to a space.
