Mendacity, Myopia, Amnesia, Atopia
Stephen Derrickson - Solo Show
November 13 - December 5, 2021
Mendacity, Myopia, Amnesia, Atopia
Stephen Derrickson has been described as a “language artist,” An artist who uses written words in conjunction with images to make work. Language frames both visual image and written texts, words are presented as pictorial, images seen as texts, to be unpacked, decoded, and read, evoking “the inescapable written-ness of social reality.” The language of now mingles and weaves with the languages of future and past, addressing the minds-eye as well as the heart-mind.
The exhibition, titled “Mendacity Myopia Amnesia Atopia,” consists of framed photos, photo assemblage works, and the release of a publication, by the same title, of writing and images of the last two agitated years. Russian constructivists, the narrative wing of conceptual art, the terrain of the artists book, the work of John Heartfield, Ed Ruscha, these were among the image/word worlds Derrickson vacuumed up, stole from, responded to, loved, critiqued, was influenced by. The book is a re-presentation of images in the exhibition, a journal of the pandemic years, and includes two photo essays and one illustrated text titled, Pandemic Cancer Insurrection. It is at once suggestive and ambiguous, explicit, personal, and political.