Growing up in a small rural town, I felt alienated. I didn’t see my own identity reflected in the world around me. My only refuge was the solitary companionship with animals, insects, plants, rocks, trees and streams in a thickly wooded forest. It is this place my creative and spiritual journeys were born. The mystique of nature and unknown provided me solace and inspiration.
This desire for a sense of belonging led me to create works that make an offering to those seeking community and connection. My otherworldly landscapes, surreal figures and dreamlike installations make space for people like me who are trying to understand the unknowable. The compositions expand upon traditional practices, to create objects which suggest dreamlike places through vibrant forms and color. I document my own intimate relationships with the environment, gently exploring life that surrounds me and my imagination. The works form a visual journey from familiar places to a meditative path to the future. It’s a place for people like me who ask questions and explore answers. It can be paradoxical; exuding intensity and sereness. I invite the viewer to reimagine space and bring time to a standstill. To find some shared path towards the universal truth of what it means to be alive.
D Derek attended Parsons School of Design, American Conservatory Theatre for Dramatic Arts and Providence College. He is a recipient of: a New England Foundation for the Arts Grant, State of Connecticut DMHAS Arts Initiative Grant, public art commissions by the City of Norwich and Ocean Chamber of Commerce, awarded an ARPA Grant and an Artist Professional Development Cohort Grant and recently accepted to the Masters Abstraction Intensive In-Residence program at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. He also placed 1st for Abstract Art at the New York City Washington Square Art Exhibit, presented at the New Britain Museum of American Art, and instructs at the Mystic Museum of Art. His artwork is in many private residences, corporate locations, galleries in the U.S. and Europe.
He was selected in the International Contemporary Artist Book, Volume XI and is featured in Vellum Magazine as an emerging artist.