Bucks &amp; Oxon

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="563" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekOgbournecopy.jpg" alt="Derek Ogbourne" class="wp-image-170379" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekOgbournecopy.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekOgbournecopy-800x450.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekOgbournecopy-400x225.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



I wake up around 7.30. My body wants to sleep but my brain wants to go so I make myself a strong coffee from the Nespresso machine. I recently returned to High Wycombe after 40 years in London and now live with my mother, Pamela, 86, in the house I was born in. We generally get on alright, but we can start the day with a heated debate – usually over each other’s food consumption and health. Breakfast is often a boiled egg and soldiers, and then we sometimes spend ten minutes or so doing a jigsaw – of late we like doing puzzles of famous artworks, and we’re now working our way through all the Brueghel paintings I can find.



I’ve built myself a shed in the garden, which is where I do my woodwork, like making the stretchers for my canvases. Once I’ve collected the tools I need for the day ahead I’ll drive to my studio in Alperton listening to the radio &#8211; Classic FM, Heart 70s, or plays on Radio 4 Extra. I aim to get there by 11am, which sounds quite late. I have my own self-contained studio, sharing the building with other craftspeople like silversmiths and potters. I ruminate a lot before I begin work and get another coffee. My studio is by the Grand Union Canal so I can see the boats, the swans, and the people walking past. I most often have some paperwork or have a meeting to get out of the way before I am free. As part of my&nbsp;‘limbering up’&nbsp;process before working, I might also, when needed, spend the day stretching and preparing a load of canvases – maybe five or six large ones at a time.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/395276924_1017799116122339_402041623092312901_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-170598" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/395276924_1017799116122339_402041623092312901_n.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/395276924_1017799116122339_402041623092312901_n-800x800.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/395276924_1017799116122339_402041623092312901_n-400x400.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/395276924_1017799116122339_402041623092312901_n-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



I’m mostly painting at the moment – oils and watercolours. If I’m really going for it, I can work for a few hours straight. And when I do start painting, I’m very fast. I like working on big canvases – say 2m by 2m is a great size, always such a thrill. There is a fear it’s not going to work out, but it always does in some form that excites my senses. When I feel I’m getting somewhere I’ll have a little relax. I used to smoke and sit back and ponder the canvas, but now I’ve quit I’ll walk to the shop or something else instead to give my eyes and brain a rest. I’ll complete a painting within a day or two which is super-fast – sometimes it takes me longer to stretch the canvas than it does to paint the thing.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="861" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekStudioShotcopy-861x1000.jpg" alt="Derek Ogbourne studio Alperton" class="wp-image-170381" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekStudioShotcopy-861x1000.jpg 861w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekStudioShotcopy-689x800.jpg 689w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekStudioShotcopy-345x400.jpg 345w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/DerekStudioShotcopy.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 861px) 100vw, 861px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Derek&#8217;s studio in Alperton</figcaption></figure>



I’ve had an extremely varied artistic career, starting with a solid primary structured art education when I studied in my foundation at Amersham College. The Slade School of Fine Art followed for six years, and since then my work has been evolving from landscapes and figures to everything from what some regard as radical performance art to video art, feature-length films and large interactive sculpture. I also founded the Museum of Optography, which was a huge project where I&nbsp;played with the idea of the process of retrieving the last image from a person’s retina at the moment of their death. After a thump to my eye in the mid 1990s, my Optography project grew in ambition with shows in galleries, museums and institutions in the Middle East and Europe. My current daily contemplation is split between painting and working on a three-screen video installation at the Wycombe Arts Centre, which will be installed next Spring.&nbsp;



The pang for lunch usually heralds a need to eat healthily so lots of green stuff like avocados and broccoli. Sometimes I might have a siesta on a fold-out mattress in the studio – apparently, it’s very healthy – then I’ll carry on working until lateish. I usually get home at about 8.30, but I will take home things I want to do in the evening, perhaps working on my website or finishing something on my film. I’ve been so busy of late that I haven’t had time to go to many other artists’ exhibitions, but I do want to see The Tate’s&nbsp;Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920&nbsp;exhibition.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/426720718_309739762080394_553328757822546486_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-170595" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/426720718_309739762080394_553328757822546486_n.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/426720718_309739762080394_553328757822546486_n-800x800.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/426720718_309739762080394_553328757822546486_n-400x400.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/426720718_309739762080394_553328757822546486_n-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



I have been inspired by artists of all periods of history over the years, from Old Masters like Rembrandt and Turner to the little-known American performance art group called Survival Research Laboratories, the German artist Joseph Beuys, and the American video artist Bill Viola. I draw subconsciously from a lot of visual and audio forms, absorbing the world around me, and if the world is at war, as it always is, then it is unavoidable it will spill forth as it emerges in my paintings and films. I’m interested in science, literature and music and a myriad of other things emotionally and structurally – and when I come up with new ideas I have to work on them as soon as possible, in whatever medium it might be appropriate to express those ideas.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="563" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/IMG-20240906-WA0002.jpg" alt="Derek Ogbourne show" class="wp-image-170640" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/IMG-20240906-WA0002.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/IMG-20240906-WA0002-800x450.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/IMG-20240906-WA0002-400x225.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The New Works exhibition at the Willesden Gallery</figcaption></figure>



Because I usually work lateish, I don’t go out much in the evenings. My idea of pleasure is to make things, so I don’t need to unwind as such, or to decompress from my day job. However, my&nbsp;latest show, New Works, opened this week at the Willesden Gallery, showing with Swedish artist Ann-Caroline Breig, one of my former students. Exhibitions nearly always have tense lead-ups because you hope people will turn up. I love the feedback to showing, I love talking about my work in front of it. I have taught fine art for 30 years, from amateur classes to degree tutorials, and have recently started an evening class at the Wycombe Arts Centre. The next session is on 9 September and is open to all levels of students. I also give back by teaching at local care homes on some afternoons. But my focus is always on making my own artwork – it’s so rewarding because I wake up with an idea in my head and then I just do it. Being an artist is heaven!



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/456716643_1035196818141099_7681120905678470648_n.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-170596" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/456716643_1035196818141099_7681120905678470648_n.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/456716643_1035196818141099_7681120905678470648_n-800x800.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/456716643_1035196818141099_7681120905678470648_n-400x400.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/456716643_1035196818141099_7681120905678470648_n-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Ann-Caroline Brieg, co-creator of Derek&#8217;s current exhibition, New Works</figcaption></figure>



Away from art, my recent enthusiasm is a recently bought fibreglass canoe, but I need to find the time to take it out on the water – perhaps I’ll go down to the Thames at Marlow.



As the day draws to a close, in bed before 1am is the aim. I’m a bit of a news junkie and (cat video watcher), so before turning in (and getting up in the morning) I’ll catch up with what’s going on in the world or read a book. I’m currently working my way through everything by German novelist Heinrich Boll, the Nobel Prize-winner who wrote about extreme poverty, disorientation after the Second World War and the everyday. Once I’m asleep, it’s pretty deep. I don’t remember my dreams.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-derek-ogbourne-s-creative-bio">Derek Ogbourne’s creative bio</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="671" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/YellowSky.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-170652" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/YellowSky.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/YellowSky-800x537.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/bucksoxon/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/YellowSky-400x268.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



Derek Ogbourne, born in High Wycombe, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. His work spans many disciplines and his periods of production can be broken down to: large organic paintings (early 1980s), interactive art installations (late 1980s), performance art (1990s), video and filmic narrative explorations (2000s to the present), and his museum installation called The Museum of Optography, which garnered international attention (2007-2016). A return to painting from 2017 culminated in his Lockdown Series of 2020&nbsp;followed by the screening of&nbsp;multi-award-winning film&nbsp;Bison Hill&nbsp;(2022). From 2023 onwards, he’s been working on his ongoing Blue Series of paintings between working on his latest film.



To get in touch about commissioning pieces, arranging one-to-one or group tuition, and discussing exhibitions <a href="https://www.derekogbourne.com/">see his website</a> or <a href="https://wycombeartscentre.com/events/art-school-foundation/">click here</a> to book a place on his Fine Art Foundation course at Wycombe Arts Centre.

Day in the Life: Bucks artist Derek Ogbourne

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