DEB LEMCKE
Bio
Born in 1976 in Canada, Deb Lemcke grew up in Queensland and now lives and works on Dja Dja Warrung country in Castlemaine. Starting with a successful career in communications and event management, Deb recently completed her Master of Art (Art in Public Space) and is now exploring how art can be used as the basis for more genuine and connected community engagement. Her most recent work, Community (2024), explores experiences of living, working and playing in Were St Montmorency. The corten steel sculptural work comprises sixteen unique leaves with the midrib of each representing a sound recording of the words people used to describe what the area means to them.
Contact
Deb@thelaunchbox.com.au
0478 742 265
Image: Deb Lemcke 2022
Artist Statement
For twenty years, Deb has managed the highly successful, award-winning communications and events consultancy, The Launch Box. With a focus on community engagement and mental health, she has creatively delivered hundreds of events and communications campaigns. As an emerging textile artist, Deb is in a unique position to combine highly attuned professional skills and experience with her artistic mindset. Her work brings people and ideas together through participatory textile art projects, creating opportunities to explore new perspectives and make new connections.
After her mother received a terminal cancer diagnosis, Deb found solace and connection through a community quilt project. Designed to give people an outlet for sharing their love and support of her mum, Deb saw the potential for stitching and textile art to facilitate acts of care and create time and space for conversation. Combined with her events-based community engagement experience, Deb is creating unique work offering multiple points of entry for participation and engagement.
Deb is interested in how our brains work and the different ways that we can influence them by engaging with creativity and the natural world. She explores these ideas through textile-based art that encourages participation and engagement throughout the making process. Her work reflects care, intimacy, and gentleness at every stage of its creation. Each stitch is a considered and careful decision to share a story or idea that might spark a new connection.