Art Exhibition: Debra Lill, Mixed-media Assemblages

“What Remains” is a new series of mixed-media assemblages by Debra Lill, which will be on display at the Library for the month of November. The work combines a variety of artistic processes with vintage ephemera assembled inside reclaimed boxes. 

Inspired by nature, the pieces incorporate scenic landscapes and pressed leaves reminiscent of found treasures tucked between the pages of an old book. Books are in fact an important thread that runs throughout the work. During her career as a book-cover artist, Debra has created photographic illustrations that capture the essence of other people’s stories. In several of these pieces, she revisits her early cover images, reimagining them as dimensional assemblages and thereby making them part of a new and more personal narrative.

Debra finds herself motivated to preserve fragments of the past while carrying them forward into the present. Original artwork and photographs are interwoven with aged papers and time-worn objects, then gathered and framed like treasured keepsakes—not because they are perfect or intrinsically precious, but because the stories, memories, and connections we attach to them have made them so.

Debra maintains a photography and art studio in the back of her vintage book shop, “The Lill Reading Room,” located at Whiting Mills in Winsted, CT.