ARTIST STATEMENT
My work focuses on material exchange, immediacy, aesthetic dialogue and invented territories.
Every image, whether objective or nonobjective, is founded on deconstructed historical, cultural, and religious paradigms. These smashed realities are then reformed into a singular home. Each painting, drawing, and analog collage is a further examination of this elseworld and its physical and cultural constructs. Some hold depictions of spaces and how they are carved up and shared between natural and man-made elements and their varying agendas. Other's host intimate investigations of the populous and the relationships within.
Deletion is a critical step in my process. Utilizing paint and mixed media collage, I work quickly and instinctively on numerous pieces at once so that the body of work forms together. From there I identify and isolate the moments I found to be successful and delete what I consider to be irrelevant. The deletion is often achieved by building bodies of unmodulated color fields and layering mixed media elements. Resting these next to other fields allows me to create honest, sculptural lines and forms by pinching paint together. I further maneuver these spaces with derelict icons and soft narration as these languages consolidate.
BIOGRAPHY
Derek Meier received a BFA with a focus in Studio Painting from the University of South Dakota. He has work in both the University’s Visual Arts Department Permanent Collection and the President's Collection.
Recent solo exhibitions include Memory Palaces at Red Garage Studio (Minneapolis, MN), There is No One New Around You at Exposure Gallery (Sioux Falls, SD), and Detecting Broader Patterns at MacRostie (Grand Rapids, MN).
Recent group and juried exhibitions include Open Door XVI at Rosalux Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), Way Out at La Grange Gallery (Cernay-Les-Reims, France), Be. Long. at Dutoit Gallery (Dayton, OH), The Figure Show at Minnetonka Center for the Arts (Minnetonka, MN), Bright Side at Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), and the traveling exhibit Fiction (With Only Daylight Between Us) at Divisible Projects (Dayton, OH).
Recent curatorial projects include Groundswell at Artspace Jackson Flats (Minneapolis, MN), and an upcoming group show in fall 2020 at Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN).
Meier has worked as a teaching artist previously at Edina Art Center (Edina, MN), Rum River Art Center (Anoka, MN), and as an Artist-in-Residence at the Mississippi Creative Arts School (St. Paul, MN).
Community fundraising efforts include Art 4 Shelter (Minneapolis, MN), Feeding South Dakota Food Drive, Washington Pavilion Arts Night and Artists Against Hunger (Sioux Falls, SD).
He is currently based in St. Paul, where he works with artists with disabilities as a Client Service Coordinator and Art Educator at Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts (St. Paul, MN) and as an Art Outreach Educator through Artistry (Bloomington, MN).
My work focuses on material exchange, immediacy, aesthetic dialogue and invented territories.
Every image, whether objective or nonobjective, is founded on deconstructed historical, cultural, and religious paradigms. These smashed realities are then reformed into a singular home. Each painting, drawing, and analog collage is a further examination of this elseworld and its physical and cultural constructs. Some hold depictions of spaces and how they are carved up and shared between natural and man-made elements and their varying agendas. Other's host intimate investigations of the populous and the relationships within.
Deletion is a critical step in my process. Utilizing paint and mixed media collage, I work quickly and instinctively on numerous pieces at once so that the body of work forms together. From there I identify and isolate the moments I found to be successful and delete what I consider to be irrelevant. The deletion is often achieved by building bodies of unmodulated color fields and layering mixed media elements. Resting these next to other fields allows me to create honest, sculptural lines and forms by pinching paint together. I further maneuver these spaces with derelict icons and soft narration as these languages consolidate.
BIOGRAPHY
Derek Meier received a BFA with a focus in Studio Painting from the University of South Dakota. He has work in both the University’s Visual Arts Department Permanent Collection and the President's Collection.
Recent solo exhibitions include Memory Palaces at Red Garage Studio (Minneapolis, MN), There is No One New Around You at Exposure Gallery (Sioux Falls, SD), and Detecting Broader Patterns at MacRostie (Grand Rapids, MN).
Recent group and juried exhibitions include Open Door XVI at Rosalux Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), Way Out at La Grange Gallery (Cernay-Les-Reims, France), Be. Long. at Dutoit Gallery (Dayton, OH), The Figure Show at Minnetonka Center for the Arts (Minnetonka, MN), Bright Side at Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), and the traveling exhibit Fiction (With Only Daylight Between Us) at Divisible Projects (Dayton, OH).
Recent curatorial projects include Groundswell at Artspace Jackson Flats (Minneapolis, MN), and an upcoming group show in fall 2020 at Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN).
Meier has worked as a teaching artist previously at Edina Art Center (Edina, MN), Rum River Art Center (Anoka, MN), and as an Artist-in-Residence at the Mississippi Creative Arts School (St. Paul, MN).
Community fundraising efforts include Art 4 Shelter (Minneapolis, MN), Feeding South Dakota Food Drive, Washington Pavilion Arts Night and Artists Against Hunger (Sioux Falls, SD).
He is currently based in St. Paul, where he works with artists with disabilities as a Client Service Coordinator and Art Educator at Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts (St. Paul, MN) and as an Art Outreach Educator through Artistry (Bloomington, MN).
