John Derrick

I got my start in art by way of doing graffiti with some kids from my local neighbourhood in Melbourne, Australia. I saw real artistry in graffiti and developed my sense of colour and form from those days and then moved into Fine Art painting at high school and have never looked back.

In my early career I also worked as a nurse and through this work I observed some interesting characters that I was compelled to paint. I completed a series of paintings of residents of a supported accommodation house which I completed in my final year of a Bachelor of Fine Art. These paintings of special accommodation house that got national acclaim and led me to get a scholarship to study painting in New York. When I landed in New York and my world was literally blown apart as I was exposed to works of masters from Vermeer to Jackson Pollock.

Ever since, I have attempted to marry the two styles of figuration and abstraction together using a bright and colourful palette. I paint intuitively using a simple idea or image as a starting point and the end result is often surprising or unexpected. The process of making marks and being present in the moment is a very mediative process with the painting quite literally painting itself.

I have had over...

2006 – 2010 PHD , RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

1998 - 2000 Master of Fine Arts, Pratt Institute, New York, USA.

1994 - 1996 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia.

Solo Exhibitions:

2023 'Requiem for a Lost World', Montsalvat Art Space, Melbourne, Australia.

2019 'On the Couch', Subspace Projects, Melbourne, Australia.

2017 little No Big, Melbourne, Australia.

2016 'Elanora', Subspace Projects, Melbourne, Australia.

2013 ‘Virtual Doppelganger’, Five Walls Projects, Melbourne, Australia.

2011 ‘Virtual Canvas’, Trocadero Art Space, Melbourne, Australia.

2010 ‘CAVE Painting’, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

2005 Forty-five downstairs, Melbourne, Australia.

2002 Forty- five downstairs, Melbourne, Australia.

2001 Switchback Gallery, Monash University, Gippsland, Australia.

2000 Pratt Institute, New York, USA.

1998 George Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

1997 George Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.



Group Exhibitions:

2023 Gippsland Print Prize, Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.

Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Sydney, Australia.

2022 Percival Portrait Prize, Perc Tucker Gallery, Townsville, Australia.

‘The Kangaroo and the Eagle, Friends and Allies 1908 to 2019’

Pentagon, USA.

2020 Percival Portrait Prize, Perc Tucker Gallery, Townsville, Australia.

Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Sydney, Australi...