Derrick Velasquez 2026

 DERRICK VELASQUEZ RECENT WORKS

b. 1982 Lodi, CA
Currently resides in Denver, CO

About

Velasquez' work is an attempt to construct a language of structure that questions our physical and psychological interactions with industrially manufactured materials that exist in the spaces we inhabit. Through an investigative process, he projects varying forces like gravity or tension on plywood, two by fours, Masonite, marine vinyl, acrylic, hardwoods, and the human body in hopes of teasing out their obvious and sometimes less apparent qualities.

In Velasquez' Untitled series of vinyl wall pieces, he meticulously hand-cuts individual strips of marine vinyl and stacks and accumulates them onto precut wooden forms. As a bookbinder, the vinyl is a material he used as covers for hand-bound softcover journals. The form and process of the formalized wall pieces came from an every-day practice of precutting enclosure straps for the journals and placing them on a screw on the wall. As these began to accumulate, he realized that he was denying the intended surface of the vinyl and exposing the innards of the synthetic fabric. This created a new flat surface that lacked the continuity of a sheet of fabric and became a construction of sophisticated and subtle color harmonies by way of hundreds of hand-cut and layered strips. As the number of the vinyl strips grows, the relationship of the visual structure slowly shifts – the vinyl no longer conforms to the shape of the wood form but instead rounds out to a gentle curve.