This is the work of California-based artist Derrick Valesquez. He started his career as a bookbinder, working with vinyl to bind soft covered journals. In preparing the books he would precut strips of vinyl and hang them over a screw on the wall. “As these began to accumulate,” Valesquez observes, “I realized I was denying the intended surface of the vinyl and exposing the innards of the synthetic fabric. This creates a new flat surface that lacks the continuity of a sheet of fabric and becomes a construction of sophisticated and subtle color harmonies by way of hundreds of hand cut and layered strips. As number of the vinyl strips grows, the relationship of the visual structure slowly shifts – the vinyl no longer conforms to the shape of the wood form, but instead rounds out to a gentle curve.”
These poetic constructions create hypnotic colour fields in which the evolving curves seem to lift from their original perch. Like artists Josef Albers and Barnett Newman before him, Valesquez’s exploration of colour produces something simple yet profound.
