Derrick Buisch is a featured artist in our current exhibition “Sonic Disruptions”. Of his work he stated: “As a self-described ‘Painter’ I consistently seek out new ways to experiment within the narrow avenues of paint on canvas. Certain marks, signs, scribbles, gestures are repeated by means of projection, stencils, and transfers. A vocabulary of visual chatter celebrates the distortions, interruptions, and interference within the painted surface. These works are very straightforward, taking on subjects like imaginary monsters and fantastic buildings. The blunt, naïve nature of the subjects serves as an easy foil/mask, allowing for a range of rich experimentation with paint chemistry, color, installations, and scale. The physical properties of the medium are constantly stressed, questioned, tweaked, and recalibrated to keep the working visual vocabulary fresh and inventive.

I focus on abstract painting informed by ordinary, everyday visual information. My original fascination with ideograms transitioned into a more automatic, abstract painting vocabulary. These paintings involve the investigation of three specific properties: drawing, structure, and color. Inspirations for these works come from a variety of pedestrian sources, such as roadside signs, strip malls, graffiti, tattoos, and product symbols.

The color points to a range of materials, from the synthetic (plastic, bubblegum, crayons) to the natural (old walls, shallow pools of water, flesh), as well as exerting a physical presence, one that is mouth-watering and sensuous. The surfaces vary in types of paint application employed, revealing the element of time involved in making the painting. These paintings are developed at different rates, incorporating varying degrees of pigment and oil. Subtle changes in color and surface tone evoke compressed shifts in the visual space. The differences in paint viscosity are subtle and precise and extremely important in differentiating each painting. Ultimately, the surfaces of these paintings are luscious and mysterious.” Revisit his gallery walk from opening night on our app! (Available in the App Store or at app.cuseum.com/rockford-art-museum) @ Rockford Art Museum