BIOGRAPHY
Artist Statement: My work represents movement. I use a dotting technique that enhances the movement, by using a material that is used for protection and yet, I interpret my subject as "free". By using a hand painting with dotting method I learned from Aboriginal Artists, I discovered a new medium using bubblewrap as a modern method in which I call " Wrap Art". Native Australian Artists such as Johnny Warangkula, Clifford Possum, and Pansy Napagati, have made a large impact on my life over the past 8 years, while I was painting in Australia. Other artists that I have studied with are Tarzan Illustrator and Anatomy Author, Burne Hogarth and Fashion Photographer and Author , Paul Jasmin, who I studied under, at Art Center College of Design also Artist, Illustrator, Author ,Teacher, and inspiration for going to Art School, Antonio Lopez. And my beloved Mother, Artist, Teacher, so inspiring and free, Marilyn. HOLDING HORSES 2001-2002-2003 Story by Derusha, 1.27.03 In the past 8 years, I have come to know many painters in the Northern Territory of Alice Springs Australia. I've been going to Australia for the past 14 years to paint. Among the many influential artists I met was Johnny Warangula Jupurrula in 1994. I didn't go to the desert from Sydney to look for anything particular; I just went with author Nikki Gemmel on a month's journey in her Ute, to see more of Australia. Along the way, I made sketches of roads and she wrote a book. We stopped in Alice for a few weeks, and I began painting The Road series on cotton duck canvas in my back packer's room while Nikki wrote in a caravan. I went to most of local hang outs, among them, football, bingo, church, and wrestling. At a life drawing session, I met artist Robert Klein Boonskate, who lead me to an old ice factory that was occupied by the Government funded Gallery called Watch This Space. Robert and his wife Zella, encouraged me to exhibit The Road series. A few months later, I returned to Alice to exhibit the 30 road paintings at Watch This Space. That was the time I met Johnny Warangula, when he approached me with a digging stick near the Todd River. Later in our friendship he demanded to paint on a small unfinished painting of mine, of an Appaloosa Mare and her foal to my amazement! (Another story). These artists taught me a lot about art and spirit. I believe at this time my inspiration and life changed dramatically. I also learned that every picture tells a story, and the artist has the right to tell the story how they want to, and it might not be the whole story. Also, how the viewer hears a story about a painting, or sees it, recalls it, might be a whole different story. So with most respect, I say to you, thank you for your interest in my art, and I will do the best I can at the moment of telling you about my work and why I made it and the when and the where. After 9/11, was back in Alice Springs, Australia, ripping up a drop cloth and started painting horses again. You see, a lot people were sad, not only because of the attacks, but many old friends had passed away (among them my dearest J.W.) and it seemed as if cowboys hats were less numbered in mobs (groups of aborigines) in the Todd River. The cattle days have long gone for them, and so have many of our friends and relatives. Horses seemed a safe subject matter for me at the moment. If a rare Ringer (cowboy) happened to come by my studio with a friend to see my paintings, I noticed them smile and they'd started talking about the good old days of breaking Brumbies (wild horses) and well, that was good enough for me to keep painting these horses. But I couldn't help but feel sad about the world affairs, and I can't help but feel, that it has affected my vision as to how I wanted to interpret these powerful creatures. I had watched many artists in the desert paint the same story over and over again over the years, but different color or style. I chose deliberately to paint on cotton outstretched canvas this time. You see, this is the medium many artists in the desert use for their canvas (when dealers don't hand out stretched Belgium Linen canvases for commission). My experience of seeing this type of work by artists who live in the bush reached all my senses, not only the sight of the painting, but the feel and bushfire smell of them. The first four horses of the Holding Horses series were painted on the cotton drop cloth split in four. I originally started painting horses when I stayed mostly alone on Polo ranch north of Sydney for a year in 1991. Rocky a Polo Crosse horse and Oaky a race horse were my favorite horses to paint. I paint their images over and over again. I did two pastels of Oaky in Sydney that ended up in a collector's house in Albuquerque New Mexico. While painting Paris Roads in 1996 in Paris, France, I made two large pastel horses and one ended up with my bodyguard, the other with a collector from Canada. It's rare that I paint horses and when I do it's often the same composition. These Holding Horses series bear the mark of my recent medium, synthetic polymer, (commonly known as bubble wrap that is a trademark name) which I refer to as "wrap". I've been working and exhibiting this medium for the past 7 years. The texture of the medium is a familiar common worldwide product that is primarily used to protect things. I liked the idea of this medium and I like how some of the art of the Australian Aboriginal culture is expressed in a dotting method. I use this medium as a contrast to the rough cotton duck this time(normally I combine it with Belgium Linen, i.e. The Art laws series which had reference to the Western Desert Art movement). These mediums together represent to me the rawness of the desert, the roughness of the horses that run wild and the excitement of coming across them in the outback. I use the wrap this time to enhance the motion of the horses, as well as my intention of an idea of protecting a memory of what it's like to be around a horse (maybe) or could it be some kind of armor or environment or something. I have traveled back and forth from Australia this past year often carrying the horses in a ski bag to and fro hoping to finish them, photograph them and let them go. I just moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and for the first time I hung all the horses together in my studio a month ago and then I let them go. I succeed in making these works because they represent to me, so much of my experience in Australia and the rawness of these works are much like my own skin, weathered and alive.
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