Today we’d like to introduce you to Douglas Degges.
Douglas, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in North Louisiana with very little exposure to contemporary visual art. It wasn’t until my first semester of college that I really got a sense of what was happening in contemporary practices. The initial plan was to study mathematics and, slowly, over the course of my first three semesters in college, Hamlett Dobbins and Erin Harmon weaned me away from the natural sciences. I ended up taking nearly every class they offered. Looking back, I think the most formative and life-changing course I took was a topics course on collaborative painting and drawing. It was in this course that I learned the joys of communal making and the value of openness and vulnerability. While enrolled in the course, I began to envision my studio practice as a site of perpetual learning and a place for trying out new ways of thinking and making. This understanding of the studio continues to be important to me and has become the cornerstone of my creative practice.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I think finding employment as an art worker and educator is always a challenge. There is so much competition and far too few resources. For so many young educators, teaching at the college or university level also requires multiple relocations. I view the whole “settling down” process as one of putting down deep roots and building or becoming a part of a community. The nomadic lifestyle and hunt for employment delays this process.
Douglas Degges – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I primarily work in painting and spend a lot of time thinking about the inherent slowness of this approach to making. At a time when we have immediate access to anything, from sourcing information on the internet to our ability to capture and store images at a moment’s notice, painting seems well poised to ask questions of newer forms of visual expression. In my own studio practice, I find painting to be a great vehicle for reflecting on the speed at which images are produced and consumed. My work attempts to pick itself apart, in an effort to find instances where the painted and drawn image connects to but also separates from other approaches to image-making. Some of my recent paintings call attention to the relationship between the image, the immaterial thing that we can hold in our mind, and the object that contains or supports it.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
This is such a difficult question. I think it’s important to always be looking ahead as if the best is always yet to come. I mean this both in terms of the creative work itself and the accolades and opportunities that hopefully crop up along the way. My painting practice is always a few steps ahead and I enjoy not fully knowing what’s going to come next. I think this applies to my understanding of success as well. It’s hard for me to envision what opportunities might be on the horizon but I’m excited and hopeful!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.douglasdegges.com
- Email: douglasdegges@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/douglasdegges/
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