Susan Derges

Susan Derges’ extensive body of work captures a wide range of scientific and natural processes. Her work moves between qualities of science and natural phenomenon and the metaphorical counterparts captured in her images. Her imagery takes on a variety of photographic forms, including camera-based photography, camera-less photography, and a combination of the two. One of her self-created techniques involves working in the dark of night and using the landscape as her photographic darkroom. This technique is exemplified in several bodies of work where she has captured the ongoing movement of water by immersing photographic paper into rivers and shorelines, using the moon and a flashlight to expose the paper. Other significant bodies of work involve capturing invisible sound waves, representing the growth of frogspawn from tadpole to frogs, and capturing the imagination and wonder found in early Renaissance alchemy, among many other projects. Her new monograph Elemental brings together all of her major series to date, spanning over twenty-five years of work.

"The act of choosing physical phenomena to stand for her internal reality continues to be at the heart of the way in which she works. I think of it as the defining quality of the entire sequence of series that she has made over this twenty-year period. Over that time we have seen her in the guise of a resonating mercury droplet, as flowing water, as a racing cusp of light, as a globe of spawn and as a colony of bees. What links all these investigations of different natural phenomena from the realm of physics and biology, is that they are all capable of carrying metaphors that speak eloquently of her mind, and her body and her growing understanding of their nature and place in the wider universe."
-Christopher Bucklow, Stars as Standing Waves; Standing Waves as Soul in the Field of Time

Born in London, England in 1955, Susan Derges currently lives and works in Dartmoor, Devon. From 1973-1976 she studied painting at Chelsea School of Art in London. From 1981 to 1985 she lived and worked in Japan, returning to London in 1986 with the influences of Japanese minimalism and integrating this into her discovery of cameraless photography processes. Throughout her career Derges has been the recipient of many awards, fellowships, and residencies where she has been able to further pursue her artistic interest in science. She has received residencies at the Museum of the History of Science attached to the University of Oxford, The Eden Project Education Centre in Cornwall, Stour Valley Arts Project in Kings Wood, Kent, and Maudsley Hospital in London, among others. She has been exhibited throughout the world in both solo and group exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited at Purdy Hicks Gallery in London, Johyun Gallery in Seoul, Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, Paul Gasmin Gallery in New York, Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, and Tokyo Design Centre, among many others. Her work can be found in many collections, including: Arts Council of England, Victoria & Albert Museum, San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Eden Project, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hara Art Museum, among others. Susan Derges is represented by Purdy Hicks Gallery in London and Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh.