Banff National Park Gallery of Fine Art and Photography

"Historically, every work of art is a fragment of some larger unit. At the same time, every work of art is a conglomerate of components from different ages, intricately related to many other works of art, both old and new, by a network of incoming and outgoing influences."

Tony Hepburn. "On Style and Content." Issues in Clay: Western Canadian Sculpture. Edmonton: Latitude 53, 1982, 17.

Derrick motions to a large painting of two reclining nudes.  “I have no idea where it will take me,” says the Edmonton artist.  The considered lines of the figures are in the process of being integrated with their backgrounds.  Scraps and patches of monotypes, paintings, and PMT paper are collaged around and within the figures.  Pieces from past work lie in a plastic basket at the base of the easel.  “I have always liked this piece,” Derrick says choosing a torn square of paper with green pastel markings verging on a bold black line.  “I am never sure where I will use the parts.  But this is an important element of this process.  It excites and fascinates me.”

Sorochan’s decision to use collage stems from a sense that the figure was too dominant in his work.  “The background was one thing and the figure another,” he explains.  “I wanted to integrate the two.  Not to create representative forms in the background, but to balance shapes.  A dark textural swatch from a monoprint can be placed to give perspective to a seated figure and it also makes the figure less dominant.”  “The complexity of the human form offers a constant challenge.  But collage adds another dimension.  I feel it is an important step for me.  It is a new direction.”  Despite this move from figural supremacy, Derrick’s work centres on the human form.

After working with many different media, such as photography, the turning point in Sorochan’s work came after several years of training, including courses in life drawing at the University of Alberta, portrait drawing at the Edmonton Art Gallery, and monoprint/ monotype at the Series Program, Red Deer College.  Interaction with other artists, during life drawing sessions at Harcourt House Art Centre, is instrumental to Sorochan’s growth as an artist,