I work in series, exploring how processes and fixations play out in succession. The source material varies: flea market ephemera, found text, street scraps, childhood drawings. The tools too, as I'm drawn to ink and oil stick as much as scissors, glue, and digital composites. Sampling, remixing, and layering are preferred strategies. Recurring fetishes crop up in the titles and commentaries, which (so far) can be grouped into three arenas: an attention to memory, temporality, solastalgia, the Anthropocene; hollow earth, the cosmos, planets, and constellations of the mind; kitschy spiritualism, clairvoyant poetics, haunted houses, the uncanny. Throughout it all an ongoing itch to engage with the hidden, the unknowable, and the ceaseless flow of lost things via the mutation, morphing, and recombining of whatever’s within reach.
I teach at St. John's University, NY; before that I taught at Harvard University. My academic interests have included the teaching of writing, arts-based research, and sustainability as a pedagogical ethic. MA and Doctor of Arts from University at Albany; MFA from Transart Institute + Plymouth University. I live on Long Island, New York.
contact@derekowens.net
Selected Exhibitions
"Nine-Box Grids," Art League of Long Island, August-September 2025.
“aeolian harps”, Labocine, August 2025 issue.
“Our Rabbits Whisper Their Escape,” Digital Art, Assemblage and Collage exhibit, Limner Gallery, Hudson NY, June 19-July 12, 2025.
Digital art on exhibit at Future Fest, Orillia Opera House Eco-Art Exhibit, “Your World Soon”, Sept 26, 2024, Ontario.
“One Is Underwater in the Heart of the Wood.” Mixed Media , Part Crowd Gallery, Toronto, July 1 - August 31 2024.
“Corona,” “Tree Sprites, Greenlawn, Dusk.” Art League of Long Island, August-September 2024.
“Presidential Portrait, #45” Benefit for Harris/Walz, Gallery Gaia, Brooklyn, NY, August 3 - August 31, 2024.
“The Essentialists,” 3rd Annual Member & Guest Group Show, Pictor Gallery, Manhattan, NY - November 28 - December 23, 2023.
“the real, honest goodness,” Small Works Exhibit. Jag Gallery. Key West, FL. November 3 - November 26 2023.
Beyond Earth. Ten Moir Gallery. Kansas City, MO. September 2023.
Art and Poetic Text. Cultural Center of Cape Cod. South Yarmouth, MA. April 11-29, 2023.
"One Need Not Be a Chamber," Down on Paper. Vestige Concept Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA. February 18 - March 19, 2023.
"Hain't," New Data--New Dada. Stone Valley Arts. Poultney, VT. September 16 - October 23, 2022.
After the End of the End of the World. Regier Gallery, Bethel College. North Newton, KS. February - March 2021.
"Voyager Postscripts", Creative Climate Awards/Human Impacts Institute. Manhattan. Nov 6 - Dec 4, 2019.
Collage. Site: Brooklyn Gallery. Brooklyn. June 14 - July 13, 2019.