"Art and music are my passions but it's all art to me."

Internationally acclaimed artist Debra Hurd studied art at both Southern University in Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. For 15 years she was a graphic designer in Florida and Austin, Texas.

She is also an accomplished pianist, having studied music since early childhood. Debra's wild boogie-woogie and honky-tonk style still finds her in the recording studios and at live performances in Austin. She loves jazz, classical, and salsa styles, too.

As a painter, Debra is famous for her insightful paintings of animals, her vivid city scenes and her passionate and perceptive depictions of jazz, rock, and blues musicians. Being a musician, she has both a great respect and a feel for the emotions of musicians of the past and present. She works in oils, using a knife to get bold and instant color. She finds the knife to be a great tool of expression. She reaches the observer through the use of dramatic color and texture.

Debra explains: "A very ordinary scene can be perceived differently when painted with a bit of exaggerated color and awareness of light. The ordinary then becomes the extraordinary. Color is critical. When I'm asked which color is my favorite, I tend to think in terms of which two or three colors I like in combination."