Interview about the exhibition

Questions.

Q: So, Derek , Tell me a bit about yourself, a potted history of your life.

A: Sure, I was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and grew up in the beautiful town of Dumfries in the southwest. After school, I studied at the world famous Glasgow School of Art, where I graduated with an Honours degree in Fine Art. After college I did a business course and then worked as a set builder, props man and art director in the film and tv industry. In the following years, I got married, got unmarried, travelled to Australia and ended up living in Spain, working as a diving instructor.
It was in Spain that I met my wife, Tanja, and we decided on the toss of a coin to move to germany, heads Scotland, tails, germany. It was a decision that we never regretted, particularly now we have our son, great neighbours and this fantastic area to live in. I opened my gallery last year, and studio, and have been exhibiting pretty much constantly ever since, here in germany, in Scotland, in denmark and so on.

Q: Could you describe yourself in one sentence?

A: Ooh, difficult, but here goes… I am a creative, friendly, outgoing and open minded Scotsman, constantly in evolution like my art. Or something like that.

Q: Do you ever regret your move here,

A: Never, not for a minute. Ok there are some things I miss, like my friends and family, but it doesn’t stop me being happy here. My wife is german, and my son who is five now is just wonderful. As my wife says, having children is like being freshly in love every single day. He has a great quality of life, and is so open and friendly to everyone. I think that’s because he has been exposed to other cultures, cuisines and countries from a very early age.

Q: Artist, Diving instructor, Props man, you seem to have had a lot of interesting jobs.

A: That’s not the half of it, I have also done a bit of commercial diving, English teacher, Art teacher, painter and decorator, gravestone restorer, and even a tarot card reader when I was a student to fund my artistic endeavours.

Q: Did you paint and draw all your life, or did you have a pause.

A: I would say, most of my life I have been painting and drawing, or at the very least doing something creative, I cant stop myself. However within the space of a year, 1998 I think it was, my Mother died, my wife left, I folded my business. I went to Australia to visit my brother and a couple of months after my return, decided to go diving for a while, so sold up everything in a couple of weeks and landed in Spain with two rucksacks, no ties and nothing else. I think the pause must have been about oh, three years before I started up again in ernest though. Aside from that, there is always something arty on the go.

Q: Tell me about this show, “the art of Evolution”, whats it about?


A: Everyone knows about evolution, or at least heard about it. It is basically the explanation for our existence in the form we are today, it explains how through a process of natural selection, we slowly evolved over millions of years from amino acids, through single celled organisms to the hugely complex creatures by a gradual process rather than the previous held, and somewhat unbelievable idea that we suddenly sprang into existence on this planet ten thousand years after the domestication of the dog, and three thousand years after the invention of beer.

The exhibition, is also about evolution, following the same principle, from idea to sketch to drawing to painting, follows exactly the same path, exactly the same methods and principles as can be found in nature. It applies equally to my own development as an artist, and to the development of creativity in our species as a whole.

The best ideas survive to be paintings, the weakest become extinct. Creativity is a natural part of us, the end result of a biological evolutionary process. This exhibition is about my part in my own creative world, and my miniscule part in the continuing evolution of human creativity.

Art, and creativity is natural to people, all people, and all people are creative to a greater or lesser extent. I hope that by exhibiting my work, and showing the process, that it might encourage more creativity in life. They say Art mimics life, it’s quite true, I think you could go further and say creativity IS life, because without it we would quite simply stagnate, there would be no invention, no progress, no advancement, a permanent dark ages.

Q: Do you not think that encouraging people to paint somehow weakens your position as an artist, gives you more competition.

A: Absolutely not. I mean if there were several artists in one village that only painted fairies and angels, then yes, another fairy and angel artist would be competition. But the more artists that work together, with differing styles and techniques, the better it is for all of us as the appeal of the group can be exposed to a much wider audience, and can develop and grow, learning from each other. Again nature, survival of the most adaptable. That’s why I have started getting a group of artists together on my website with an idea to doing group shows and so on.

Q: So what are the plans in the future.

A: Well at the moment I am concentrating fully on the September show, and another exhibition in Scotland in August. After that, I would like to do a group show nearer christmas, and we’ll see what happens next. Whatever happens, I am looking forward to it.

Q: Thank you