Derrick Guild

I first came across paintings by Derrick Guild at London Art Fair in January 2020. In this post I caught up with the artists to talk about his work and career.

Have you always produced paintings of people?

I make paintings, objects, performance, film and photography. My work develops from ideas and research around the subjects of nature and art history. These subjects offer me a vast array of image possibilities. The work encompasses still life, botanical and animal painting, and visual quotations from art historical sources, the human form is amongst many of my interests.

What were you doing before you started making the work you are known for?

Prior to this particular body of portrait related work, I was working on several groups of paintings which are still ongoing. One series goes under the umbrella title of “Brecht’s journal”. These paintings of animals and birds use references from art historical sources and from taxidermy specimens. I am interested in creating a collection of natural history paintings and studies that are in fact inventions, as if someone from the future is trying to piece together a version of nature from museum specimens and art historical sources. Elements of trompe-l’oeil are important, in particular the foxing, staining and creases in paper. I see the illusionistic paper space as a theatre where I can orchestrate my cast of creatures.

I am also constantly working on a body of what I call botanical inventions. This is a series of large trompe-l’oeil paintings of impossible plant combinations started whilst I was resident for two years on the sub-tropical volcanic Island of Ascension in the South Atlantic. Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker began what was known as the Green Experiment on the Island, where they organised the planting  of a self- sustaining cloud rainforest  on the Island’s Green Mountain, introducing plants from many different parts of the world. Due to the success of their experiment, which still flourishes, Ascension is a model for terraforming Mars. 

What ideas are you exploring in your art? 

I am interested in a fluidity between past present and future. I often get hooked into a subject whilst reading and researching around it. For instance, my plant-based works that were begun on Ascension were inspired by Darwin and Hooker’s creation of a garden that would hundreds of years later inform how to grow plants on Mars. An idea like this generates many possibilities. I imagine my botanical paintings hanging in highly futuristic spaces, created by some future artist, creating their own version of nature. I like to think of my works as props from films, from another kind of space: the underlying narrative is important, but I do not want the narrative to hinder the visual experience.

Clara with Van Dyke Eye by Derrick Guild

The way that classical music is readapted by composers and musicians is something I relate to in my own visual work. I view the museum object in the same way as I view a plant form. When I look at an artwork that interests me within the museum context, I don’t see it as something closed or off limits, I get a real jolt, time becomes fluid and I start to connect to the painterly language immediately. Researching around a chosen artwork then follows.

For instance, over the last two years I have been developing an ongoing series of separately framed oval details from historical portraits. I am interested in ideas of the fragment, the interconnectivity of the language of European portrait painting, the intimacy and transportability of the miniature, how we perceive a face/portrait and aspects of the philosopher David Hume’s ideas of the self. I look at portraits online or face to face in museums and choose details that I emotionally respond to, recreating the detail in oil on linen in my studio. My aim is to acknowledge the original by making it recognisable, at the same time it inevitably becomes my interpretation. I present the details of eyes, mouths, ears, jewellery and clothing on the wall, at times configured like the original and at other times mixing up different portrait details. I like mixing gender, age and social standing.

Oval Installation by Derrick Guild

The spaces between the ovals allow for the imagination to come into play, the fragmented nature of the work speaks to me of memory and sensual tension. I like to present these small works in larger groups, connecting certain ovals with fine gold chain (a reference to David Hume’s Bundle Theory), when they become part wall jewellery, part grand portrait. The idea that these small intimate images can hold their own on a large wall is interesting to me.

What would you like people to see or understand in your work?

That’s tricky, as my works can at times consist of combinations, that may seem obtuse and surreal. For instance I was invited by Jock Mcfadyen to show at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition last year. I showed a work titled “Clara with Van Dyck eye”, The work consisted of a large painting of an Indian Rhino based on Jean Baptiste Oudry’s 1745 painting of Clara, with a small oval frame containing a painting of an eye from a Van Dyck portrait physically hanging from fine gold chain, in front of the Rhinos eye. In this work I am using the idea of the anthropomorphism in animal portraits by likes of Jean Baptiste Oudry, and also referencing the philosopher David Hume’s ideas of the sentience of animals. Because of the footfall at the Royal Academy I came across many remarks about the work on Instagram. These were all very positive, but I am not sure if the intentional meaning of the work factored in any response. As I paint or make my objects very clearly in a representational way, I believe this allows for an easy reading of the image. I hope that if people get hooked in to the combinations that the narrative may start play a part. My paintings and objects take time to reveal themselves.

What memorable response have you had from your work?

I make trompe-l’oeil jewel studded sculptures of potatoes that hang on the wall. People repeatedly ask me how I stop the potato from rotting and falling off the wall, this is the ultimate compliment: the illusion works. 

The label paintings are magnificent and …..do you have anything to add about these paintings and how they sit or fit with the smaller works?

Ever After by Derrick Guild

My label paintings are about societal and personal desire to label or categorise. Diego Velazquez sought to be more highly valued within the Spanish Court, he felt that his painting skills should be placed above that of the Kings milliner.  It is ironic that when Velazquez was given the honours and position, he rightly felt he deserved, due to diplomatic work and Royal collection management, he painted less and less. Both the labels and the smaller portrait works are fragmentary in nature which I suppose gives them formal connection but I am not too focused on them connecting or fitting together particularly. 

Which artists or texts influence your work.

This list is long and very varied, and flips back and forward from contemporary to the historical in equal measure , a small sample of artists include David Altmejd , Robert Crumb Albrecht Durer , Jean Baptiste Oudry, Charles Howard Hodges , Jean Etiene Liotard , George Stubbs ,Ian Hamilton Findlay, Frans Snyders ,Alan Ramsay, Tony Matelli , Anthony van Dyck and Diego Velazquez.

A small sample of literary influences Include David Hume, Cormac Mcarthy, Paul Auster, Philip K Dick, Georg Simmel, Flann O’Brien and any books relating natural history or exploration.

Film is also a big influence, again a small sample includes Andrei Tarkovsky, Paolo Sorrentino, Derek  Jarman, Elem Klimov ,Werner Herzog , Stanley Kubrick and Ingmar Bergman. Ari Aster’s  recent movie Hereditary is stunning.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working towards a solo show at Long and Ryle Gallery, London in November, the working title of this show is “Natural History”. .The plan is to bring together my key interests  in nature and and art history, so I will be showing label paintings, ovals , animal related works and a few small objects. I would like the show to feel like a collection, with disparate links and meanings.

Derrick is represented by Long and Ryle Gallery  in London, and The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.
Derrick’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/derrick.guild/