To me, painting is like the culmination of, you know, for me at least, you know, drawing
or whatever.
That's what my real statement will be in that, and the Ronas comes out of, because
I don't want everything to be so, nothing is so smooth or proper, you know, sometimes
I'll use like rulers to make a straight line, but to me, the lines that are not straight
represent more truthfully how nature is, in a certain way, and, uh, hunded Vasa, never
a pain in the straight line, you know, that guy is pretty cool.
All right, well, I was born in Florida, actually, Orlando Regional Medical Center, and, uh,
to Scott and Dana Desilet, and, um, when I was a young kid, actually, uh, parents got
divorced, and I moved upstate, up to Rochester with my mother, lived there for a while in
the city, and then, um, actually have a sister who's seven years younger than me, but I
guess that's afterward, um, they were divorced, so I lived upstate, you know, so I feel like
a lot of it is the type of two different ways that my parents are, my mother's very emotional,
and things my dad's very practical, so for me, I think what is, like, in my brain is
trying to reconcile these two different aspects.
Oh, I was thinking about that project, but it's kind of like, I feel like they want me
to make some type of, like, you know, sleek contemporary thing, when for me it's more
like rawness, you know, like raw potatoes, you know, reality or something, but I'm gonna
do it anyway, it's a show in Chelsea, so that'll be okay.
So I would always, I have, I have pictures of me when I'm a baby painting, and everyone's
like, ah, I've been an artist since, you know, whenever, I always was, but I have proof.
When I was like eight in high school, senior year, that's when I first started actually
making art, I remember I was in my dad's garage, and I was melting wax on canvas for no apparent
reason, just because that's what I wanted to do.
And I would always spill paint in the beginning, I would get these gallons of house paint from
like, whatever Home Depot or something, because they were cheap, they were like five bucks
for a whole gallon, I would just throw that, and I remember this, I was painting in my
room in Florida, and I left the paint cans open, like, I got to this point where I was
in my room, this is not very big, I would put the bed up onto the wall to have a studio
to paint, like every night I would throw my bed on the wall, and paint, but one night
I left the paint cans open, and they're very not good for you, and the next day I could
hardly breathe, I was like, remember I was writhing on the floor, and they were all really
freaked out, they were really scared for me, they thought that, you know, I was, you know,
I get depressed sometimes, but I'm not gonna like, you know, do anything, you know, but
that was, that was fun, that was fun, hey guys, it's Derek here, Derek Desleis speaking
to you, welcome to my studio, my brain, I hope you enjoy it, and I love you guys, that
was lame, I'm just trying to think about what to describe my paintings as, in a sense, I
was coming up with a term or something, but raw just stuck out, all the great art movements,
the great movements in art, they always had some type of manifesto or something, and I
don't think I've really made a manifesto, I don't really know how raw it is to really
have it right now, but it's just everyday things, it's more like inspiration comes to
you when you least expect it, and so the inspiration, it comes from around you and everything, lately
it's kind of like more raw, it looks kind of like, you know, the detritus on the street
between where the street and like the wall come together, that's the remnants of everyone's
life, just sitting there, you know, waiting to be swept away, perhaps raw I use as something
that I'm striving to, raw to me means real, and trying to become real with it, and just
walking around, you see things, sometimes the most like dilapidated or decrepit buildings
or things, or even, you know, when they put the posters on the wall, and there's been
multiple posters and they come off, and it makes that texture and the different colors
visible to me, that to me is raw, raw power, like Iggy Pop, raw power, it's just raw, it's
real, they're not playing any games with you, they're just trying to show it to you how
it is, and I guess it used to be like shock value, like I would paint these paintings
with like ladies with a leg spread, the vagina is right over there, you know, and like to
me that was, other than just the raw aspect, that was a rebirth or the opening, or someone
going through something, or coming out of something, becoming anew, or just the natural
state of things, let's see how that looks, I feel like if you walked in somewhere that
would be more powerful, I don't know if it was like how it was before, I had a, when
I was younger I had a pedagogic dream, that's when you wake up and you're out of breath,
and I was living in Rochester, I was very young, maybe I was 6 years old, but I remembered
to this day, and there was also other things that were associated with it, but I remember
myself walking up this rickety staircase that kind of curved upward, and you kept walking
and walking up, and this is a dream I was having, and I was like, like I said 6 years
old, walking up and I get to the top where the door opening is, it's just this vast deep
black void, and I walk through it and I start to fall, and then that's when I woke up, was
out of breath, and to me that was basically like an analogy for life, you keep walking
up these stairs, up, up, keep going until you die, then you walk through this vast void,
and you fall, and you're dead, and to me that's a very powerful thing that I had even when
I was 5 or 6 years old, and in my early paintings there was always this realistic element where
you would go towards something, and there would be this vantage point, in the end with
a door at the end, and even somebody like Bacon, he used the same thing, doors, perspective,
like a very forced perspective going into something, I've kind of abandoned that, but
those things still remain, perhaps just the singular view of something, very, like that's
the focal point, and that's where you're going towards, the upwelling of thought coming
up, hitting this dark spot, coming over from the vast open expanse.
My uncle was an artist, or is an artist, and when I was younger he was always kind of like
the black sheep of the family, and I kind of, that gave me the impetus to actually start
making art, but also to show like, because he's been homeless, he's been out of, without
work and stuff, living with other people, and so I kind of wanted to show that you can
do what you want in life, and you know, do it well, and make a living, eventually, but
you know, it showed that that's what you should do.
