ARTIST Derek McQueen is staging his third solo show at the Cupola Gallery with a typically humorous title, There is still Still Life in the Old Dog Yet.
Anticipating the obvious question, he says: "Why Still Life? Well, it's funnier than There's Landscape in the Old Dog Yet, for one thing. Also, for me, subject matter comes well below colour, expression and humour, so why not? But don't expect Chardin – I am getting on a bit."
Derek McQueen is a late developer as a professional artist. A former engineer and salesman for heating systems who retired in the late 1980s following a quadruple heart bypass operation, he took himself off to art school to fulfill a life's ambition of becoming a full-time artist.
This exhibition brings together a range of work produced since he graduated in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University in 1996.
Though not a full-blown retrospective, the exhibition charts the artist's development and the culmination of that process in more recent work. "Although Derek shows himself eager as ever to exploit new techniques and explore fresh directions, the artist's trademark lust for recording still and mobile life, his bold and playful line, his arresting use of colour, his devilish sense of humour and his commitment to reconnecting with a child's intimations of the wonder behind it all remain refreshing and inspiring constants," says the Cupola's Karen Sherwood. "Whether he is taking photographs, making prints, drawing, painting or writing, Derek's character shines unmistakably."
His written piece, Sky at Night, so impressed Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate Gallery, London, that it is now housed in the Henry Moore archives. It was inspired by The Human Figure in British Art sculpture exhibition at the Millennium Galleries. The centre-piece of the show was Henry Moore's bronze, King and Queen, and McQueen imagined a dialogue between the figures in the sculpture in response to being gawped at by a couple of daft Sheffielders, one of whom confused the sculptor with astronomer Patrick Moore.
Around 40 pieces are on display including oil and acrylic on canvas and board, original prints in the form of lino cuts and silk screen prints and watercolur, gouache, acrylic and ink on paper.
lThe opening evening of There is still Still Life in the Old Dog Yet is tonight and the exhibition continues until Saturday, September 13.
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