Focus Artist - Derek Gores
Derek was born in New York in 1971, but grew up in Massachusetts, he then moved to Florida at age ten. He studied at The Rhode Island School of Design & now he is recognised as an unparalleled collage artist, designer & illustrator, some of his clients include: Lenny Kravitz, Kings of Leon, U2, Madonna, ESPN & Lucasfilm.
He still lives & works in Melbourne, Florida, there he exhibits & curates his work, which are designs of simple figures & objects in space, such as portraits & fashion items. Derek recognises that he is greatly influenced by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Franz Kline, Rube Goldberg & Max Ernst.
Derek's work predominantly expresses the living beauty of the human figure, the abstract design aesthetics of the fashion world, as well as a fearless sense of play.
The materials he uses in his most popular works are: recycled magazines, labels, sheet music, maps & assorted analog & digital materials which he glues to canvas. He constructs his pieces first by conducting a photo shoot of the subject or object of his piece, he then deconstructs the image digitally & roughly recreates the image on canvas using his recycled or scavenged materials.
In 2009 Derek's work was selected for the manifest Hope DC exhibit & in 2010 he was named 'One of the 40 most important artists of the New Contemporary Movement.'
When asked about what he hopes to achieve in creating his work, he said, "I like my pictures to barely come together with teasing little details. Sort of like how the mind can't help but wander, even when trying to focus on one thing. In the collages, some of the little bits I use are deliberate, but in most I'm trusting randomness to help build an end result more interesting than I could have planned. One friend calls it a 'Zen Narrative.' "