iconTechnique: Collage
Derek Gores was born in New York in 1971.
In making his collages, Derek Gores recycles magazines, labels, posters and an assortment of found materials both physically and digitally. His current series highlights his multiple interests which he draws from the beauty of the female body, the aesthetics of design and the world of fashion. His subjects are often objects or figures that he places in a space influenced by the worlds of his heroes such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Franz Kline, Rube Goldberg and Max Ernst.
“ I love that buzzing stillness of old long exposure photos of Abraham Lincoln in which an entire minute can be felt inside each frame. I'm referring to classic beauty, but interpreted using raw, geometric and random materials. My real subject in the development of my portraits of women is the study of their ardent presence. Resilience, honesty and vulnerability are qualities that I admire with the greatest respect. I'm not interested in heavy, existential concepts. I do something simple and let the elements combine in people's heads so that they each invent their own story. I like my collages to struggle to stay in place while overflowing with a multitude of small details. It's a bit like the mind that can't stop wandering, even if it tries to focus on just one thing. In my collages, some pieces are used deliberately, but generally speaking, I trust a random process to help construct a more interesting end result than if it had been fully planned. A friend calls it a “Zen story.” »
Derek Gores' works are exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney, Cologne, Miami, Santa Fe and many others. Some of his high-profile clients include Dwell Magazine, Lenny Kravitz, Lucasfilm, Kings of Leon, U2, Adidas, Madonna, Harley Davidson, the NFL and Live Nation among others.