Deborah Nehmad is a Honolulu-based artist whose works on paper and mixed media have been shown in museums, galleries and major art institutions since 1998. She was born and raised on Long Island in New York and graduated from Smith College with her B.A. in 1974. In 1982, she received her JD from Georgetown University. After years as a practicing attorney and working in politics (including the Carter White House), her legal work brought her to Hawaii in 1984. In 1985, an accident precipitated a series of life altering events. By 1998, she had earned her MFA in printmaking from the University of Hawaii – Manoa.Nehmad has participated in numerous solo show and group exhibitions in Hawaii, on the "mainland", and internationally. Her work can be found in many public and private collections including the MoMA-NY, Honolulu Art Museum, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, Yale University Art Gallery, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College, Smith College Museum of Art, Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, the Hammer Museum of UCLA, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Hawaii State Art Museum, and the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. She has received numerous awards, including purchases from funds provided by the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and was one of six Hawaii artists included in the Sixth Biennial of Hawaii Artists at The Contemporary Museum in 2003. More recently, she was awarded the Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts Individual Artist Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts.