Art Dose Vol. 38 | Derrick Buisch: The knowable and Unknowable →

Derrick Buisch: The Knowable and Unknowable

Article by Linda Marcus Published in Art Dose Vol. 38 by Frank Juárez

“Drawing is a way of seeing into your own nature.”- Richard Serra

Derrick Buisch uses vibrating colors, lines, and shapes to create a kind of energy, anxiousness, and ambiguity that leaves the viewer  wanting more. It’s a peak into Buisch’s nature as an artist. The University of Wisconsin-Madison painting professor’s work is deeply steeped in popular culture, graphic design, and the never-ending dialect between the knowable and unknowable.

Buisch is hesitant to call himself an abstract painter. He says he’s been highly influenced by such greats as Gerhardt Richter, Forrest Best, and Mike Kelley. What makes Buisch’s work engaging is his use of the pedestrian, the common, or every day. It’s visible in his ongoing use of the smiley face. It’s been an interest for him for the last 30 years. He says he’s always trying to reinvent it. “I’m interested in trying to define language or vocabulary or iconography that would resonate, kind of beyond itself,” says Buisch. “A smiley face is something you can make in a matter of seconds. Once you have seen it, you understand what it is. It’s like the plus symbol or Ampersand or the @ symbol. Once you understand it it’s almost like a reflex.” Buisch also paints snakes or flying saucers for the same reason. Both represent something most of us have seen or know about, but they are also something which represents mystery and uncertainty. ” It’s evidence of mystery, you don’t know what it is, there’s a lot of hypotheses about what it could be. There are fuzzy pictures of them. they are deeply connecting but you don’t fully understand.”

A recent Zoom tour of Buisch’s studio is a feast for the eyes, a sensorial experience. Buisch says, ” I want my paintings to be the most beautiful, delicious thing you put in your mouth, and it would be like this rush of sugar completely high caloric, best cake you have ever tasted, like a flavor rush. I want my paintings to have that immediate flavor rush. it’s a trigger pleasure. The bold, eye-catching colors and forms are things we think we know, but we quickly realize it’s something quite different we’re encountering, something we don’t fully understand but are intrigued by.

Buisch democratizes imagination and gives the viewer permission to play. He purposely hangs his paintings and drawings together to create a kind of grouping, ecosystem, and an energy field. He says, “Hopefully, part of the work is that I want it to just jump off the wall. I refer to it as headache colors, two complimentary colors are vibrating against each other.” It’s those kinds of ideas that drive a kind of alchemical way of working for Buisch, “I like a painting that can be irreverent and formal and sassy and entertaining. I’m interested in what’s deeply familiar but still mysterious and a sensation that gets me closer to what I want to do. It’s a style of making which engages and slows the viewer down”, according to Buisch.

Growing up in the late ’70s and ‘80s in Silver Spring, Maryland, Buisch was highly influenced by all around him, including his comic book collection, record collection, and all the graphic design around him. He says he’s always ” unlocking “things” he’s absorbed throughout his life, and it comes out in his drawings and paintings in notebooks and repurposed ledgers. Each one is full of watercolor, acrylic, and pen drawings of all different gestures and shapes. Each collection is a study or log.  Buisch says it’s distilled chaos.” A lot of this I’m thinking about and pulling it in and then at some point there’s a place you pull it out”. 

Luckily, there’s a lot for viewers to enjoy. Buisch’s way of thinking and his nature are evident in his gestures, shapes, and doodles. He organizes it all and presents it in such a way it changes the viewer for the better. 

see the full artcile with images here