Dereck Paul

“Art is not just expressing oneself but an experiment. Just how life is renewed over & over again in seasons or stages, this is a continual process.

It goes beyond formal training at any level of skill or having a gifting. It’s the merging of personal knowledge, passion and experiences, but not a limitation to these elements alone. I craft, I compose just like our Creator, God; made in his image, I imitate him. I believe that there is nothing new under this physical stratosphere, but taking tools, ideas and elements that already exist and using them to form a personal language, a dialect so to speak. My pieces, whether finished or a continuation of some sort, reflects my personal environment.

This environment, being a Bahamian involves the mixture of both African & European influences playing out in my sub conscious. I am drawing from the artists of the past especially of the Baroque movement and merging ideas in the spirit of our cultural festival Junkanoo. With mask like forms, masquerading in the bed of night and decadent colors of bright hues and pigmentation, rhythm and movement, my creativity beats out; creating an elixir of feelings. Ultimately, these feelings I hope, produces light in someone’s dark situation, hope to a destitute mind. By experimenting with multiple media, scraping, scratching, collaging at times my experiences still dictate what is produced.

Yes, most of my works have been improvisational and impromptu in terms of materials and methodology. My concern, however now in this period in my life is combining this ‘freedom’ with a specific technique. A stage in this personal growing process, I hope to master, in the pursuit of becoming a ‘genuine, unadulterated’ artist. My art is life’s journey and what I create is a reflection of life, therefore, my art imitates my life.