Brush with death inspires new Sunniside exhibition

FLAW by Derek Hill

A near fatal tropical illness is the inspiration behind an exhibition that will go on display at Sunderland city centre’s new £6m arts and business venue in the new year.

Derek Hill uses industrial chemicals and oil paints to create large scale canvases that represent living, growing forms as if seen under laboratory conditions. The exhibition – Flaw – will be on display at thePlace gallery in Sunniside from Tuesday January 6 to Monday 2 February.

thePlace is the latest addition to Sunniside’s £130m regeneration programme and is home to exhibition space, a café, meeting rooms, artists’ studios and a range of offices.

Derek has been co-founder and lead artist at the Art Studio in Sunderland for 22 years. The Studio is an independent organisation that offers a supportive environment with free studio space, materials and workshop-based arts learning to people who have mental health problems.

Over the years Derek has developed a method of practice that uses industrial paint and solvents along with the traditional elements associated with oil painting media.

His method of work was inspired by a lethal tropical bacteria he picked up travelling

He said: “The infection I picked up was rare and one which almost claimed my life and has been a key source for my artistic inspiration and output ever since.

Derek works on up to 8-10 paintings at any one time, pouring paint and solvents into and onto its surface. Each of these works contain a substance or substances, which will allow an image or shape to morph, mutate and evolve, over a period of up to 24 hours.

“When complete, some series of works are robust and tactile. Other series in contrast, appear almost three dimensional because of their rich luminous quality, and become almost transformed under both natural and artificial light. The paint evolves as it is drying and some have evolved over several months to a year.

“It’s a passion which has given me a chance to explore the paradox of developing industrial processes to achieve something alive and organic.

“On a personal level, the exhibition offers me an opportunity to provide for the audience, my own ironic insight as to what I have come to regard as a flaw in our pursuit of perfecting the art of survival.”