SFist Interviews: Joey DeRuy, Local Artist

Published Dec. 4, 2009 at 5:40 p.m.

Geisha, acrylic on wood. 2008 SFist: How is the Dallas art scene different from the San Francisco art scene?
Joey DeRuy: To me the Dallas art scene is more about installation and sculpture, which comes with having such large spaces to work with along with Spanish and Latin influences in Dallas, and the scope of museums like the Meadows Museum. Dallas has a lot of bright and colorful neo-abstract expressionist stuff going on too, and kind of an underground movement in Rockabilly art.

San Francisco is a really creative place and is made up of a lot of abstract messages and concepts. There is a strong graphic scene here that blends in to the fine arts, and graffiti and street art influences are a lot more prevalent here. The casual scene that SF has gives way to open minds and allows for artists to flourish outside of the formal, institutional scenes that dominate in Dallas.

You spent about six years of your childhood growing up in Kenya. How would you say that affected your development as an artist?
Well, I definitely was inspired by African art for its angles and shapes, such as the masks and wood sculpture that mimic the Cycladic arts. Unknowingly I kind of followed in the footsteps of Cubist painters like Picasso who were influenced by African art too, and a lot people have said my work looks Cubist. The major difference with me is that I naively took on these influences drawing and painting as a kid, about ten years before I even really knew what Cubism was or learned about Cubist painting.

Tell us about your current work.
I'm really interested in the times we live in, where we're going as a society through technology. I see a world where we are advanced but maybe advancing too fast, with technologies becoming outdated too quickly and where ultimately it all might have to live inside us. One of my recent paintings is called 'Technology.' It's meant to show how in the future all that we'll need for access will be in the mind. If you want to talk to a fellow human, neighbor, family or friend, you'll be able to download them. Every thing that one will need such as keys transportation, communication, entertainment will not be tangible -- it will either live inside us or be some kind of projection or simulacrum, and ultimately a person might be able to just get shut off, and cut off from these resources, and it will be like death or total imprisonment -- ten times worst then a simple power outage.

I've also gotten really into interactive paintings. I have one called "One Night Stand" which shows two people with a heart in between them painted with chalk board paint, so that the art patron is encouraged to take chalk and write on the heart on the painting itself. It can be wiped clean to start over again, and every time someone adds something it changes the painting a little. It has something to do with being able to record emotion but also about impermanence, wiping the slate clean...It's a painting that isn't meant to stand still on a museum wall.

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