Derse Art Gallery

Derse Art Gallery We create and sell a large variety of all types of high-quality artworks, including originals.

This mixed media is sort of what one might call an “energy painting”, as it was highly inspired and fueled by the artist...
03/31/2026

This mixed media is sort of what one might call an “energy painting”, as it was highly inspired and fueled by the artists, I had the pleasure to be working among during its creation.

The statement this piece makes is that the eternal dance we all exist within is life. I was inspired by the concept of looking up at the sky through the trees coupled with the famous painting known as “The Dance”.

The artists I was working with at the time loved Matisse, Picasso, and Gauguin’s work, so I added some like-elements and was somehow able to these three different elements together!

Title: “The Eternal Dance”. This mixed media was finished in 2021 and is 10 15/16" x 10 15/16".

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02/28/2026

Here's a video critique I made for a surrealistic piece I did called "Roots #2".

In this painting I was trying to make the most intense painting of color that I could complete. I decided to implement ...
02/23/2026

In this painting I was trying to make the most intense painting of color that I could complete. I decided to implement sentences to break up the colors and hopefully add depth through cubism - to what would have otherwise been an anamorphic total abstraction piece.

Although hard to read, the piece says, “This is a quicker solution, this is a quicker energy”. I was making this statement at the time, regarding the fact that: all the money grubbing was a useless futility compared to making art which was cheaper than almost anything when it comes to entertaining and advancing one’s mind and body.

The original mixed media painting was done in 2007 when I was living in Illinois, but I added a few perfections in 2021.

Title: “Energy #2”. Size: 30" x 24".

This painting shares some of the subject matter I used in “No Picasso”, also painted in Hawaii and finished in Colorado....
02/23/2026

This painting shares some of the subject matter I used in “No Picasso”, also painted in Hawaii and finished in Colorado.

My aim in this painting was to create the most surreal harvest party I could think up. When I was young, I grew up in the country, so my friends and I used to attend large harvest parties, which were the inspiration for this painting.

This painting was one of the most challenging paintings I’ve done because it is very small, so I had to use extremely small liner brushes, and because of the higher altitude of Colorado, the gouache paint I was using dried very fast.

Title: “We Are Stardust”. The original painting was finished using gouache and ink in 2022 and is 6 3/4" X 11"

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During quarantine in 2020, I was stuck in Hawaii, not at all the worst place to be stuck. As it were, I was able to hav...
02/23/2026

During quarantine in 2020, I was stuck in Hawaii, not at all the worst place to be stuck. As it were, I was able to have a painting sabbatical, during which time I created this painting.

I had been working on some paintings with large groups of figures at the time and wanted to do something a little less loud, so I decided to paint an earlier idea I had had in blues and whites. I had done some cubist-style work earlier, one in which a figure was dancing, and I really liked the energy the bold marks seemed to attribute to the subjects.

With this one, I decided to try my hand at gouache, which Hawaii is a lot more patient with, over Colorado where the gouache dries so quickly it poses quite the challenge. I did a little touch up on it in 2021 to make a few of the areas pop to get the jazzy look I was going for.

Title: “No Picasso”. Finished in 2021, using gouache paint over ink on paper, size: 8 1/8" X 10 9/16”.

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In this painting I was looking to push the playfulness a step further. This one takes the luminous sky motif of my pain...
02/23/2026

In this painting I was looking to push the playfulness a step further. This one takes the luminous sky motif of my painting “Emanation” one step further, pushing the viewer to address the star in the top middle, as if a destination for the man with the walking stick whose back faces the viewer.

The color of this one is fuller than some of my similar paintings. Like in my painting “Roots”, I again build up the “cubism-like” brushwork in the middle. In this one I break up the more linear lines by adding sunflowers and grapes to the composition.
The grapes in the foreground came out of the curly hair to another shorter character, as if a Hobbit™ stood beside a wide brimmed companion; but I thought better of it and instead went for a funny title to push the playfulness that step farther.

Title: “Van Gogh’s Back”. Painted in oil in 2018, size: 17 7/16" X 19 3/16”.

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In this painting, I was trying to make the trees look more ancient and the skies more menacing. There is more interplay...
02/22/2026

In this painting, I was trying to make the trees look more ancient and the skies more menacing. There is more interplay between these two elements than in many of my similar paintings.

I also made the horizon a diagonal line and the grass foreground dominates more of the space in this painting, illuminating into the night as if a contender with “cubism-like” marks which contrast the curving marks of the sky while the orange trees oppose the blue sky in as if in effort to fight back the oncoming night sky.

Title: “Roots”. Painted in oil in 2013, size: 30 7/16" X 32 5/8".

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This was another exploratory painting I did to make a “Starry Night-motif” except with brighter colors echoing in moss c...
02/22/2026

This was another exploratory painting I did to make a “Starry Night-motif” except with brighter colors echoing in moss covered trees, which shine with surreal radiance. I was attempting to make something dreamlike, almost wanting a harmonic feeling for the viewer. This painting was a precursor to my painting “Roots #2”.

In Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, a crescent moon sits in the top left side of the painting. In this painting, a blurry light beacons a shape resembling a dark angel towards it.

Title: “Emanation”. Painted in oil in 2013, size: 21" X 24 3/4".

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This painting was a recreation of an earlier painting motif I did exhibiting the exploding of the seasons, as seen in vi...
02/22/2026

This painting was a recreation of an earlier painting motif I did exhibiting the exploding of the seasons, as seen in vibrant trees. In this version I was trying to increase the radiance of the colors by matching the shade of the complementary colors closer. Although, in this version I was attempting to batter the foreground with more light and add more color to the fields in the background, as if earlier in the day from the original painting.

Normally follow-up paintings are hard, but with this one, I was happily surprised by the results!

Title: “More Trees”. Painted in oil in 2013, size: 39" X 29 3/4".

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In this painting I was attempting to take the “Starry Night-motif” and multiply the concept as a water reflection of a s...
02/21/2026

In this painting I was attempting to take the “Starry Night-motif” and multiply the concept as a water reflection of a similar sky. Unlike Van Gogh’s composition, I decided to add firework-like shapes, as if there are exploding stars, or imploding gases going on in vacuums of space.

Sunflowers, or perhaps a strange bird turns out of the bottom corner towards the reflections, with the look of weakness or worry as lights from the neighborhood illuminate the body of water.

Title: “Lamps”. Painted in oil in 2013, size: 21" X 26 3/4".

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In this painting I was again working on a surreal scene, I have done many renditions of. My mask-making classes come th...
02/21/2026

In this painting I was again working on a surreal scene, I have done many renditions of. My mask-making classes come through in this version, as a sky that has a papier-mache quality. The two blue trees are echoed as if in another dimension above by smaller fish scale shapes.

I started this painting in art school in the 90’s but finished much later. Someone tried to buy this one, as they were watching me struggle with it one night in the painting studio in Kentucky at Berea College. At the time, I always made the buyers wait until I was finished though, or charged them excessively, so I still have this one!

Title: “Erosion #6”. Finished in oil in 2020, size: 16" X 20".

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