Renate Debrun is a German-born artist based in Dublin. She is self-taught, taking up painting professionally in the mid-1990s.
Initially she worked on fabric, then concentrated on print-making, and currently works in both printmaking (etching and monotype) and mixed media drawing. Her early subject matter was concerned mainly with plant and animal forms observed and drawn from life. More recently it also includes the human figure, and she has become particularly interested in the area of crossover between the two, such as the Native American trickster tradition and animal figures in mythology and folklore. At the moment she is working in printmaking, on a series of monotypes of birds.
She is a member of the Graphic Studio Dublin and Visual Artists Ireland, as well as a founder member of Marlborough Studios, Dublin (2009).
For the past 20 years she has exhibited regularly in Ireland and abroad. She has had solo exhibitions in, among other places, Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda (1995), Kenny Gallery, Galway (1998), Dublin Writers Museum (1999/2001), United Arts Club (2004/2008), Doorway Gallery, Dublin, (2011), Hambidge Centre, Georgia, USA and Helix Exhibition Space, DCU (2014), while group shows include the RHA annual exhibition, Oireachtas, Lemonstreet Gallery, Dublin and Klinikum Fürth, Germany.
She has been awarded fellowships at artists’ colonies in Ireland, Spain and the US.
Her work is included in public and private collections in Ireland (OPW, Guinness Ireland, Sedgewick Dineen Irish Pensions Trust, Tyrone Guthrie Foundation, Mercer Ltd, Hibernian Pensions, Writers Museum, Dublin) as well as in private Collections in Ireland, UK, Germany and Spain. Her work Is represented by the Doorway Gallery, Dublin, Kenny Gallery, Galway, and the Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin.