Derric Clemmons works (along with Luz Maria Castillo, another featured artist) with Cocomocha Studio, a community driven arts studio which features a large selection of art wear clothing and jewelry. A graduate of Columbia College, Derric finds artistic inspiration in a diverse assortment of places. He cites Jean Basquiat (a neo-expressionist American painter), Stuart Davis (an American modernist painter), and Pablo Picasso as influences on his paintings. Inspiration for his sculpture comes from African and Meso-American relics and ancient symbols.
Clemmons is interested in the use of various mediums, including paint, to produce a combination of layering and texture on the final work. In the past six years he has experimented with resin to stiffen the canvas for a "found object, ancient, historical effect." His wood sculpture involves "producing 'story symbols' and portraying the flow and ebb of living and inanimate things that is a part of our natural world." Some of his sculpture is produced using pyrography, or wood burned outlines, that surround each color cell. The effect is heightened with a layer of resin that enlivens the color.
Chicago IL
