Deborah White Artist

Deborah White is a multidisciplinary artist whose work weaves together memory, material, and belonging. Born in Malawi and now based in the Northern Rivers, she draws on her African roots and lived experiences to explore what it means to find home – not just as a place, but as a state of being.

Her ongoing body of work, Finding Home: The Art of Belonging, spans sculpture, textiles, large scrolls, and film. Each piece carries traces of the natural world, recycled and found materials, and stories of resilience, grounding, and connection. Sustainability is at the core of Deborah’s practice, shaping both her material choices and her commitment to transformation and the quiet dignity of what is often overlooked.

In 2025, her short documentary Finding Home premiered through Fibre Arts Take Two’s Friday Feature Artist series, reaching audiences worldwide and sparking powerful conversations about identity, memory, and creative healing. She plans to expand this project into a forthcoming book, and Part Two of the film, which will return her to Malawi to reconnect with landscapes and communities central to her story.

Deborah describes her practice as “a way of coming home – not just to a place, but to myself. It’s a remembering of who I’ve always been, and a search for where I’m meant to be.” Her work invites others into that search: to see home not only in walls and dwellings, but in belonging, rootedness, and the stories we carry.