Derek Dyer is a Salt Lake City based American leading artist, whom belongs one of the Guinness world records (2005) – the construction of the largest mirrored disco ball. This week Dyer also has a record – his two elite solo art-shows overlap in Salt Lake – close to its end Earth People in Sorenson Unity Center Gallery and the new exhibit Plastic World in Utah Arts Alliance (both free to the public).
Who are the Earth People?
If you look through the exhibited art-photos in Sorenson Unity Center Gallery (see the slide show below*), at first view you may answer: weird and strange models, just to remind us that art most often means something that is not our real everydayness. Some may even try to guess how technology is involved in the photos and ask whether all models are real. Nevertheless.
From step to step and from photo to photo the provocative art-photos direct your mind toward the problem: How close and how different are people from the natural environment? Although different, can we be united with nature? Derek’s art-photos are not a nostalgic song about past when people were just a part of nature, without a big heritage of own socialized culture. It is also not a protest that some may forget that nature is our cultural “mother”. It is an optimistic artistic and original metaphor of human-nature integrity and interaction.
From anthropological perspectives, Earth People reflects the idea of sustainability in life and in art. It strongly confirms the author’s cultural biodiversity model of integration, maximalization and complimentation, as its profound artistic expression.
All color photos of Derek Dyer in Sorenson Unity Center are for sell and have affordable prices. Because of the embedded strong idea of human-nature integrity they are very educational.
*The author expresses her gratitude to Derek Dyer for his permission to include photos from his home page in the slide show.
About Derek Dyer
Derek Dyer has been a staple of the art scene since the late 90's, continually pushing his creativity and showcasing his work in various forms from painting to sculpture to photography. Not to mention being a featured in several high-profile events, gaining national recognition, helping out charities and causes, and picking up a world record along the way. (Cityweekly.net)
Derek Dyer about Earth People
Earth People series is photographic work but creating the image that I am to photograph is really more about 95% painting, sculpting and assemblage work on my models.
This show is photographic work in which the subject matter is people that represent different elements of natural earth. The show presents ideas of the connectedness between humans and our environment. The subject is covered in the earthy elements that surround them. Through this process the people become earth people. Although humans are creations of the earth we view ourselves separate from the earth and other living things; we think of animals, plants and our environment as something outside of the human experience when really it is all one, interconnected and symbiotic experience. Seventeen pieces are on display and are for sale.
(http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/blog-3179-derek-dyer.html)
Earth People exhibit, through April 16, 2010: Sorenson Unity Center, 1383 S 900 W, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114. http://sorensonunitycenter.com/
Plastic World, Opening reception (free to the public) on Friday, April 9, 2010: Utah Arts Alliance Gallery, 127 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 (www.utaharts.org)
World largest ball, by Derek Dyer
Homepage at http://www.derekdyer.com/
Derek Dyer, by Gavin Sheehan
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/blog-3179-derek-dyer.html
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