CLOSE TO NOTHING SOPHIE DERRICK
CLOSE TO
NOTHING
CLOSE TO NOTHING
TECHNOLOGY, THE BODY, AND PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE
“Derrick’s Effect is Startling but Beautiful” - Melissa Scallan 2014
This groundbreaking exhibition of London-based Contemporary Collective artist Sophie Derrick, sees her previously more figurative style, subvert reality further. Derrick pushes the boundaries of deception and representation, to create works that explore the transformative possibilities of paint, abstraction, negation and the loss of the real. In Close to Nothing, Derrick challenges the alchemic possibilities within her process. Seeking to heighten her unique style of production, blending performative photography with painting, reality with fiction and absence with presence. Derrick transcends the genre of portraiture, using her face as the canvas. Impasto paint is placed sculpturally upon the artist’s face, then rendered flat through digital photography, the image is then re-animated, as thick lashings of paint are applied heavily across the surface. Derrick translates paint’s materiality and substance and dynamically fuses the digital with the tangible to create alluring works. The palette within ‘Close to Nothing’ takes inspiration from her iconic series ‘Feint’, featuring ethereal and muted colours that gradually ascend throughout the collection into a multi-layered vibrant, cacophony of neon hues. Derrick intends to challenge our perceptual experience of the works, presenting us with a crescendo of colours and engaging 3-Dimensional installations, that evocatively capture the act of painting through fragmented and glitchy interfaces. In the past year Derrick’s career has risen rapidly within the art world. In 2016 she was selected for the prestigious Royal Academy Summer show, as well as being shortlisted to the final 200 of the BP Portrait Award. She was recently featured on BBC News, focusing on influential women in the arts. Derrick’s works are now held internationally, in private and public collections.
CLOSE TO NOTHING #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #2 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #3 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #5 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #4 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #6 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #7 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #8 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #9 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
CLOSE TO NOTHING #10 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
SOMETHING & NOTHING
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - PINK LARGE #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - YELLOW LARGE #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 150 x 100 cm
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - GREY #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100x 70 cm
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - PINK #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100 x 70 cm
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - PEACH #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100 x 70 cm
SOMETHING AND NOTHING - YELLOW #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100 x 70 cm
BLUR #1 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100 x 70 cm
BLUR #2 Digital print mounted onto alumnium dibond, face mounted with perspex and overlying acrylic paint 100 x 70 cm
Sophie DERRICK “My ‘Self’ is lost, buried beneath the paint and the notion of portraiture is questioned. The body becomes both object and subject within the work” - S.Derrick
EDUCATION 2012 2008
Wimbledon College of Art MFA Leeds University (BA Hons Fine Art
AWARDS 2016 Shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award 2016 2010 Signature Art Prize Finalist, Mixed Media Category, London 2009 Best of the UK competition 2009 2008 Boundary Gallery Prize for Figurative Art 2007 Boundary Gallery Prize for Figurative Art, London SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2017
Close to Nothing, Solo Exhibition, Contemporary Collective Gallery 2016 Affordable Art Fair Singapore Affordable Art Fair Battersea 2016 Affrdable Art Fair Bristol 2016 2016 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts 2016 Portrait 16: DegreeArt.com Gallery Affordable Art Fair Hampstead 2016 Affordable Art Fair Battersea 2015 Shifting States, Solo Show, 2015 Contemporary Collective Gallery 2015 Affordable Art Fair Singapore Affordable Art Fair Hampstead 2015 Residency at DegreeArt ‘Total Painting’ 2013 Auerbach to the Future, Solo Exhibition, The 2011 Execution Room, DegreeArt.com Gallery 2011 Commendation in Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Works competition, published in Aesthetica creative works album Boundary Gallery Prize for Figurative Art, 2008 London
For further information please contact Gallery Director, Chantelle Purcell 020 8980 0395 | Chantelle@DegreeArt.com