Derek Gores

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 13:23

Written by Andrea Forte

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Tucson Fashion Week

Born 1971, New York

BFA Rhode Island School of Design, 1993

Collage Artist Derek Gores recycles magazines, maps, data and more in his lush portraits on canvas. The balance of detail and playfulness in each piece reveals Gores' knack for discovery and for building seemingly endless puzzles into his works. Rearranging the scraps, he is able to form a sort of surrealist image, where from afar a nearly photo-realistic image comes into focus. However, as the viewer gets near, the small scraps reveal themselves to be other pictures, song lyrics, charts, patterns and more, and sweep your attention away down a new rabbit hole. His subjects feel both classic and modern; strong women building their own stories on the canvas, filled with the details of travel, curiosity, and luxury for all the senses.

Gores is considered part of the New Contemporary Movement, playing in a post internet and post pop-art vista, letting the real, digital, and virtual worlds mingle. He builds on Dada and Surrealist ideas from the last century, especially enjoying the idea of "automatic" art and allowing chance and repetition in as part of the process. Gores' work is inclusive and inviting, partly due to the humble disposable materials, and partly due to his drive to use art to connect.

Gores is a collaborator. He's deeply invested in his home town Eau Gallie Arts District on the Space Coast of Florida, as well as in the larger global creative community, regularly engaging with blue chip brands, who value how Gores' work engages the senses in a way words cannot.

STATEMENT

I play in the gap between what you see and what you think you see. I like my pictures to barely come together with teasing little details, trusting distractions, and coincidental encounters along the way. When it goes well, there's a chance to create a real experience, instead of just a picture of an experience.

Some of the little collage bits I use are deliberate, but in most I’m trusting randomness to help build a sort of Zen narrative. I like things a little off- Odd shadows like in de Chirico’s paintings, or odd combinations of mood like in Max Ernst’s surreal collages made from catalogs. I enjoy the contrast of timeless beauty with disposable materials - the pop art, post-Warhol idea that advertising and throwaway materials just maybe could be art. That anyone can touch or use, or reuse, these materials.

Artist Derek Gores creating his Art. Photographer | Baris Barlas

HONORS and CLIENTS

Exhibited in the Manifest Hope exhibit at President Obama's Inauguration in 2009.

First solo museum exhibit in 2018-19 at the Foosaner Art Museum in Florida, curated by Serene McGroarty

Commissioned by Churchill Downs to create the official artwork for the Kentucky Derby in 2013.

Commissioned by Playboy to create the cover artwork for the Hugh Hefner Tribute Issue in 2017.

Additional clients include Longines, Heineken, Rinascente, E! Entertainment, Loews Hotels, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, Sony, the National Football League, and more.