Deborah Hesse works at the intersection of the natural world and invented reality — building wall constructions from Plexiglas, color gels, aquarium materials, urethane, and acrylic that function as synthetic ecosystems, parallel versions of the marine environments she has spent decades studying. Her surfaces catch and hold light the way water does. Her forms drift, cluster, and accumulate. The shadow a piece casts on the wall is as much a part of the work as the object itself. Her research into ocean health, seaweed farming, and marine ecosystems has shaped both the material and conceptual logic of her practice. A Connecticut Visual Artist Sea Grant Award and a Rhode Island Visual Artists Sea Grant Award supported this work, as did an international residency at Hongti Art Center in Busan, South Korea, where her investigation of seaweed cultivation traditions culminated in a solo exhibition. She was also Artist-in-Residence at Green Wave and Weir Farm Art Center and Historic Site. Hesse holds a B.A. from Smith College and a Master's in Painting and Printmaking from the University of New Mexico, where she was a fellow at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography. She received a 2019 Connecticut Office of the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. She was a founder of the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven and served for fifteen years as Director of Artistic Services and Programs at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Her work has been exhibited in South Korea, New York, New Mexico, and Connecticut. She lives and works in Connecticut.