An artist and teacher for over 30 years, Deborah Rockman is currently a Professor of Art and Chairperson of the Drawing and Printmaking programs at Kendall College of Art and Design. In 1992, she was the first woman and the youngest person ever to be awarded the rank of full professor in the history of Kendall College. Rockman’s award-winning work in drawing, collage, mixed media, and digital media has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions at venues throughout the United States, including ARC Gallery (Chicago), Artemisia Gallery (Chicago), Rockford Art Museum (IL), South Bend Museum of Art (IN), Fort Wayne Museum of Art (IN), Cabrillo Gallery (CA), Midland Museum of Art (MI), Peninsula Fine Arts Center (VA), Contemporary Arts Workshop (Chicago), and Ontario College of Art and Design (Canada). 

Rockman has been awarded fellowships to a number of artists-in-residence programs, including The Radgale Foundation (IL), The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VA), Cummington Community for the Arts (MS), Mary Anderson Center for the Arts (IN), and The Vermont Studio Colony (VT). She has lectured by invitation at national and international venues, including The Fifth Congress of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, the 93rd Annual College Art Association (CAA) Conference in Atlanta, the 90th Annual College Art Association Conference in Philadelphia, the 83rd Annual College Art Association Conference in San Antonio, and the MAEA Statewide Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has been a visiting artist at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Elon University in North Carolina, Northern Illinois University in Illinois, and was honored as one of 100 Outstanding Art Alumni at Western Michigan University’s Centennial Celebration.

In 2008, she was invited to exhibit in The Figure Revealed: Contemporary American Figurative Paintings and Drawings at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. In 2008, 2005, and 2000 she was awarded Best of Show in the Regional Juried Art Exhibition at Muskegon Museum of Art. In 2006, she exhibited in the 2006 Biennial: Contemporary American Realism at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana. She has been honored with two retrospective exhibitions of her work at the Midland Museum of Art in Michigan and at Kendall College of Art and Design. In addition to her studio work, which explores relationships between the individual and contemporary culture, Rockman is the author of two books - The Art of Teaching Art and Drawing Essentials: A Guide to Drawing from Observation, both published by Oxford University Press. She recently completed work on the 2nd edition of Drawing Essentials, which includes a new chapter on drawing with color. It was released in December of 2011.