Opening: June 18, 6 - 8 PM

The works included in this exhibition are a part of a recent project: a squirrel from memory. The smaller works on paper are more literal and time-intensive translations of printed photographic images, mostly of the northern Louisiana landscape, fish, small game, rodents, and pests. These photographic images are digitally prepared, occasionally collaged, and present a far more articulated visual language than the paintings. The drawings are my way of studying an image and internalizing form. The paintings are either crafted from memory with whatever is held onto from the drawing process or approached in a fast-paced and painterly way, much like a study. I'm particularly interested in how the paintings undo the drawings and am thinking about how these disparate modes of inquiry might posit "the work" somewhere in between the paintings and the drawings. This requires some averaging or leveling across the visually and materially divergent objects that comprise a squirrel from memory.

ARTIST BIO

Douglas Degges (b. Shreveport, LA) is an artist and educator currently based in Mansfield Center, CT where he is an Assistant Professor of Art in Painting and Drawing at the University of Connecticut. Douglas received his MFA from the University of Iowa and a BA in Studio Art from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. His work has been exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. Most recently his work was exhibited at Side Room Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, the PrattMWP Gallery at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY, the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in Milwaukee, WI, the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, and Galleria Huuto in Helsinki, Finland. His work has been supported by several artist residencies including the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Millay Colony.

For more information about Douglas, please visit his website: http://www.douglasdegges.com/