The Artist on his Art
The following pages you can read some of David Derr's thoughts on his artwork.
More will eventually be added but David is fond of saying that "a visual artist writing about paintings is
somewhat akin to dancing in snowshoes, it can be done but something get lost in the translation."
Reflections on Art by David Derr
" All pictures inherently have content, the best ones have an underlying river of meaning that can be re-interpreted by each viewer and the circumstances they bring to it. It's a bit like individualizing each work to people you haven't met, and the best way I know how to do it it to keep the images ambiguous in part, rough, child-like and in some cases unfinished, inviting the viewer to add their own imagination to fill in the blanks."
"An artist’s need to create, whether it is visual, musical or literary, is like breathing. It is essential to his being. Ideas and images come unbidden. It is his charge to bring them to life or they will die."
"When I first learned to draw and paint I was retrained to “see again”...to see what is actually there and not what we think is there. The next step for me was to go back again and see what was in my minds eye. This bouncing back and for between disciplines keeps my work exciting."
"Whether I’m starting a drawing, painting, digital piece or assemblage I always view it as something that has a life of its own, that needs to be what it wants to be. I watch and listen as it grows into fruition, each piece is a little bit of a miracle in its own right."