Derek Gores was born in 1971 in New York. He received his BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1993. Out of school, he worked as a commercial artist and then art director in the Licensed Apparel industry, creating work for the NFL and all the major sports leagues, working for VF Corporation, the world's largest apparel company. He freelanced for Sony/LiveNation, creating designs for tour merchandise for some of the world's biggest bands, including Madonna, U2, Van Halen, Depeche Mode, and many others. Gores worked in the apparel industry for more than a decade, then at age 37 leaped into fine art full time.
Derek Gores recycles magazines, maps, data, and more in his lush portraits on canvas. The balance of detail and playfulness in each piece reveals Gores’ knack for discovery and for building seemingly endless puzzles into his works. Rearranging the scraps, he can form a sort of surrealist image, where from afar, a nearly photo-realistic image comes into focus. However, as the viewer gets near, the small scraps reveal themselves to be other pictures, song lyrics, charts, patterns, and more and sweep your attention away down a new rabbit hole.
Gores exhibits with top galleries in Los Angeles, Paris, Quebec, New England, Miami, and more. He’s considered part of the New Contemporary Movement, playing in a post-internet and post-pop-art vista, letting the real, digital, and virtual worlds mingle. He builds on Dada and Surrealist ideas from the last century, especially enjoying the idea of “automatic” art and allowing chance and repetition in as part of the process. Gores’ work is inclusive and inviting, partly due to the humble disposable materials, and partly due to the artist’s drive to connect and let the viewer in.
Gores is a collaborator. He’s deeply invested in his hometown Eau Gallie Arts District on the Space Coast of Florida, as well as in the larger global creative community, regularly engaging with blue-chip brands, who value how Gores’ work engages the senses in a way words cannot. Derek was honored with his first museum solo exhibit, “Local Edition”, curated by Serene McGroarty, at the Foosaner Art Museum in Melbourne, Florida in 2018-2019.
