Biography
Derek Berry is a multidisciplinary artist based in Orangeville, who works in a wide variety of printmaking practices, acrylic paint and sculpture. Currently Derek is continuing his education at OCADU majoring in printmaking and publications after completing a 3-year program at Georgian College with honours. Derek co-founded the PRNT Collective in Barrie alongside local artists and colleagues whose goal is to educate and exhibit printmaking to the local community. He traveled to Atlanta, Georgia after accepting a residency for emerging artists at the Atlanta Printmakers Studio where he created and exhibited intaglio-based prints. Derek has exhibited seldom since the pandemic focusing primarily on his mental health, but has recently returned to his artistic roots, reflecting upon his experiences during isolation and reintroduction into current societal norms. Presently, Derek is looking to cultivate his creative process and procure a cohesive body of work that encompasses his journey with obsessive compulsive disorder.
Artist Statement
As an individual who has developed obsessive compulsive disorder in their youth and has overcome a plethora of ritualistic tendencies that riddle the mental illness, the pandemic has been increasingly overwhelming and parasitic. This constant disposition of fear and uncertainty has been an assault on my outlook within a world of constant motion and change. As time continues forward and society becomes desensitized to these overwhelming fears that plague my thoughts, I can’t help but wonder about my place within it, and if there is room for someone like me. My work is a pursuit of insight that pertains to the avoidance tactics that riddle my everyday interactions. Recent independent research on OCD has unveiled just how intertwined these tactics are within my psyche, to the extent of influencing social interactions, engagement with communal objects, and the distancing of certain creative processes within my practice. This newfound revelation has led me to confront these ingrained disorderly behaviours with increased intensity while simultaneously accepting these traits of avoidance that permeate my being, creating a state of ‘tug of war’ that is ripe with friction and strife which I intend to lay bare.
My practice is multidisciplinary but primarily revolves around printmaking, exploiting the process to distance myself from direct confrontation with the finalized work. Using its systematic methodology, I can disperse anxieties in the many stages of a piece’s construction by following its formulaic process and relinquishing control as it exits the press. In correlation I have created work revolving around the ideology of abstract expressionism, focusing on shape, line, balance and colour as the primary influencing forces. Unbeknownst to myself this was an additional avoidance tactic I have cultivated to further surrender responsibility from representational imagery. These debilitating inhibitors become increasingly enticing as I yearn to simultaneously embrace and reject these ingrained tendencies through the further exploration of my current artistic process, and the incorporation of imagery depicted and rendered within reality.
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