Derek Woolston
Derek Woolston was born and grew up in North Walsham, Norfolk, and lived for many years in Norwich. He now lives in Braintree, Essex, with his wife.
He studied at Norwich School of Art from 1962 to 1965, took a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from 1976 to 1980, and a PGCE at the University of London from 1989 to 1990. His work was selected for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2012.
Artist Statement
My paintings are difficult to characterize, because they somehow evolve, intuitively. I know what I am doing in a, I don't know what I am doing kind of way.
The painting grows a bit like a tree, some branches need trimming or be cut off while other branches grow to bear fruit. The central core of the work must be strong enough to hold everything together. Sometimes with a painting, after what seems like an endless desperate struggle there reaches a point of crisis, and when with nothing to lose it somehow becomes possible to free the painting from itself, a pathway emerges, allowing the work to go forward, to make sense, toward fruition. A painting is only the way that one individual sees and feels things on a canvas or whatever. You can only follow your instinct of the way you see things, everything else is meaningless.