DEBORAH LAWRENCE SCHAFER
  • Home
  • RECENT ARTWORK
    • Dreamwalking in the tender garden/ Soñar despierta
    • Corazones cosidos
    • Reflexiones
  • ARCHIVE
    • Botanical Offshoot
    • Botanical paintings
    • COLORS OF LAKE TAHOE
    • Bear Island
    • La Mar
    • Fog
    • View
    • Water and fire
  • About
  • Contact
I am an interdisciplinary, bicultural Mexican American visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area (b. 1970, San Antonio, TX).
 
My work is rooted in inquiry, memory, and the search for belonging. Drawing from questions that are historical, scientific, intuitive, or spiritual, I create images and objects that reflect on our interconnectedness with the natural world, ancestral memory, and the unseen forces that shape our lives. My practice is both research-driven and deeply intuitive, often exploring themes such as time, grief, myth, and sentience. Through reimagining histories and meditating on what has been lost or silenced, I aim to create a space for healing - for myself and for others. My art is a quiet declaration: an offering toward reconnection, toward imagining a more spiritually grounded and compassionate future.
 
After earning an AB in Visual Arts from Princeton University, I worked for over a decade in art museums in curatorial, education, and tech-related capacities; then, following a series of family medical tragedies, I had a second career helping bring new medical devices to market before returning to create art.
 
My artwork has been exhibited in numerous shows nationally in Texas, Maine, Nevada, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and is featured in numerous private collections. In 2020, I was a resident artist at R.A.R.O. in Madrid, Spain, and have exhibited there since; in 2022, my artworks were showcased at the CICA Museum in South Korea; and in 2024, I was named an Aesthetica Art Prize Longlisted Artist.
Picture
curatorial texts

EXHIBITIONS & PRESENTATIONS

Cubberley Artist Studio Program, Open Studio
City of Palo Alto, CA
May 10, 2025

Native American Cultural Center, Stanford University, Guest speaker on my journey and advice for a career as an artist, Legacy in Motion,
​Academic-Residential Co-Curriculum, Stanford, CA
April 24, 2025

Palo Alto Art Center, Watercolor 2025 Exhibition, Palo Alto, CA
April 4 – 22, 2025

LymeLight Foundation, Dart for Art Auction, Mountainview, CA
March 2025

The Stendhal Room, Desire to live
Madrid, Spain
December 13, 2024 - January 31, 2025

Neil Dahl Jewelers, Artwork by Deborah Lawrence Schafer
Menlo Park, California
March 25, 2024 — ongoing

The Stendhal Room, MARKET 
Madrid, Spain
Curated and organized by Skiascope
November 17 & 18, 2023

The Village Hub, Botanical, landscape, and figurative work from Deborah Lawrence Schafer and Linda Hirshhorn Pouliot, Woodside, California
October 26 and 27, 2023
​

The Stendhal Room, Archipiélagos: Fin de Temporada, Clínica de Obra 20/23, Madrid, Spain
Curated and organized by La Forma Impensada
July 1 — 31, 2023

Riekes Center, Corazones Cosidos: Artwork by Deborah Lawrence Schafer
A site-specific installation of over fifty works including three single-channel videos and an audience participation element, Menlo Park, California
Thursday, June 22, 2023

Sanchez Art Center, 2023 Left Coast Annual Juried Exhibition: Juror's Talk & Artists Virtual Gallery Walk, Pacifica, California
Sunday, April 23, 2023 

Sanchez Art Center, 2023 Left Coast Annual Juried Exhibition, Pacifica, California
Juried by Renee Cyla Villasenor
April 14 — May 21, 2023

Artemis Gallery, Reflections on Landscape and Nature
artsy.net
January 14 — March 14, 2023
​
CICA Museum, In Touch 2022 exhibition, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
November 16 — December 4, 2022

Upstart Modern, Resilience | A Visual Proclamation, Sausalito, California
September 14
-- October 21, 2022

La Quinta del Sordo, R.A.R.Os Tesoros Felices, Madrid, Spain
​Curated by María Lightowler
June 30 — July 8, 2022

​
Artemis Gallery, Group exhibition, Northeast Harbor, Maine
May 26 — June 22, 2022

The Holy Art Gallery, Oppositions II, London, UK
Online at theholyart.com. May 22 — 28, 2022

440 Gallery, 17th Annual Small Works Show,
​
Brooklyn, New York
​Curated by George Del Barrio
December 1, 2021 — January 7, 2022

Casa de América, Arte en la Red, octava edición, Madrid, Spain
Online at www.casamerica.es/es/exposiciones/deborah-lawrence-schafer-eeuumexico
​Published: November 6, 2021

Pacific Art League, 100th Anniversary Exhibition, Palo Alto, California
Juried by George Rivera
November 5, 2021 — January 24, 2022

Illustrative Voices, Oneness: A Social Justice Exhibition
www.illustrativevoices.org
January 13 — February 10, 2021

Quarry Hill Antiques curated by UpstartModern, Brave New World, Mill Valley, California
January 9 — February 12, 2021

Artemis Gallery, Group exhibition, Northeast Harbor Maine, July 23 — August 5, 2020
 
Quinta del Sordo, Residencias R.A.R.O. Madrid, Spain,
March 25, 2020– canceled due to COVID-19 lockdown

Residencias R.A.R.O. Madrid, Spain
​February and March 2020

Art Market San Francisco, Studio Shop Gallery, Booth 207, Fort Mason, San Francisco, April 25 — 28, 2019
​
Tahoe Gallery, Prim Library, 
Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village, Nevada
Colors of Lake Tahoe by Deborah Lawrence Schafer in collaboration with the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, Incline Village, Nevada, February 14 — March 22, 2019

Prim Library, Sierra Nevada College, Artist talk, Incline Village, Nevada, March 14, 2019

PALETTE, NEW GROWTH, San Francisco, California
October 27, 2018 — December 2, 2018 
​and March 4 — April 1, 2019

Artemis Gallery, Group exhibition, Northeast Harbor, Maine,
July 19 — August 1, 2018

A.Space, Group exhibition, Menlo Park, California
​February 1 — March 10, 2018

Pacific Art League, Science, Technology and the Future of Art, Palo Alto, California
August 4 — 24th, 2017
Guest Artist
 
Shaw Jewelry, Group exhibition, Northeast Harbor, Maine 
August 2017 
 
Private sale event, Menlo Park, California, May 18, 2017
 
Stanford Red Barn auction. May 2017

505 Montgomery Street, Deborah Lawrence Schafer, San Francisco, California
Art Program lobby exhibition curated by Artsource Consulting​
Spring 2017

Pacific Art League, Science, Technology and the Future of Art, Palo Alto, California 
​First Place, juried by David Evan Harris of the Institute for the Future (IFTF)
June 3 — 23, 2016

Pacific Art League, Artists Talks, presentation about Colors of Lake Tahoe series, Palo Alto, California
June 3, 2016

Pacific Art League, Landscape, Seascape, Urbanscape, Palo Alto, California
October 2 — 29, 2015

Pacific Art League, Members' Exhibition, Palo Alto, California
July 3 — 30, 2015

California College of Arts, Dis-Ease: Medical Imagery and Contemporary Looking, MFA class, Visual Criticism Department, presentation about artwork and infectious diseases, San Francisco, California, March 9, 2006

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Solo Mujeres–Corazonada: Quinceañera/Fifteen Years of Women’s Work, San Francisco, California
February 14 — March 21, 2003

Lucas Gallery, Princeton University, Paintings by Deborah Lawrence, Princeton, New Jersey
April 1991

Lucas Gallery, Princeton University, Water and fire sculptures by Deborah Lawrence, Princeton, New Jersey
May 1992

Program in the Study of Women and Gender Department Office, Princeton University, Solo photography exhibition: Is Any Place Truly Natural?, Princeton, New Jersey
Spring 1991

Visual Arts Gallery, The Hockaday School, Watercolor paintings by Deborah Lawrence and Brandy Bowen, Dallas, Texas
Spring 1987



EDUCATION

Princeton University, A.B. June 1992. Department of Art and Archeology, Visual Arts Program.
​Awarded the F. LeMoyne Page Thesis Prize in Visual Art for water and fire sculptures.  

2025 © Deborah Lawrence Schafer
  • Home
  • RECENT ARTWORK
    • Dreamwalking in the tender garden/ Soñar despierta
    • Corazones cosidos
    • Reflexiones
  • ARCHIVE
    • Botanical Offshoot
    • Botanical paintings
    • COLORS OF LAKE TAHOE
    • Bear Island
    • La Mar
    • Fog
    • View
    • Water and fire
  • About
  • Contact