Sharing my minimal abstract sensibility with others is important to me
Biography
Growing up in Key West gave Debra Yates a quintessential perspective on art. The island, known for its artistic freedom and historic preservation, has long been a haven for emerging and established artists.
Yates may have island roots, but she is also well traveled. After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in advertising design, she studied art history in Florence, Italy. She began her career in New York as an ad agency art director, moved into magazines—first working in design development for Hearst Publications—and then as art director for Miami Magazine and the Miami Herald’s Tropic magazine. Yates served as art director for South Florida Home & Garden for 10 years before it ceased publication.
Her mosaics, paintings and design work have been published in books and magazines. Two awards that Yates is most proud to have received are the 2000 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship and the 2002 Rodel Foundation Fellowship to Vermont Studio Center.
Yates brings to each project an artist’s sense of color, a graphic designer’s love of white space, a sculptor’s feel for texture, an architect’s
