EXHIBITION

Pleased to present SOTTO VOCE (A Quiet Voice). A solo feature of collages from artist, composer and musician, Michael Deregon. View the online exclusive ONLY THE ICONIC SURVIVE; in its entirety on our collectors platform ARTSY (OCT 15, 2022 - JAN 15, 2023). 

The materials used in this online exclusive exhibition are incredibly rare, only adding to Michael’s eccentric and unrepeatable compositions. The collages are representational; but, like his music, they derive their visual power from the suggestion of fluidity.

The entire collection includes small fragments from a New York Times News Print from 1938, Antique Photo Mat Paper (1920s) and Antique Drafting Paper. The use of rare papers, charcoal, pencils are a common thread but its Johannes Brahms Musical Scores gleaned from Michael's musical projects That give the collages their own stories and meanings into a layered composition.

SOTTO VOCE is titled for Michael’s soft and subtle approach to a darker context within the work. Focusing on the aches of human emotion and the trials within life journey’s. The nine colleges in SOTTO VOCE examin and articulate Michael’s own odyssey in music and love.

STATEMENT

My collages always begin with the intent of discovery, fluidity and play. I am continuously listening and looking at the objects, cutouts, materials and colors I choose to show me where they want to go, what they have to say, what they want to hide, how they sound and how or where they want to move. Like the ocean, our hearts or sonic atmospheres these materials are alive for me, and ever changing, becoming something new and unseen or not heard or singing in the distance. I try to stay playful in the most serious way in order to reveal the unexpected, the surreal and to arouse a constant state of revelation in my work.

In this particular series of collages, the element of music is always present. Music, for me, is strongest when it takes me somewhere new or foreign and making me feel in a new way. My background as a film composer and guitarist is always collaged into my visual work in the sense that I am in someway listening to the relationships that are playing out visually within the collage process. The materials I use function like a group/chamber ensemble or band improvising and finding the mood or the sweet spot in which to tell their strongest most compelling story.

These works use sheet music as a both a visual element creating a sounding landscape but also these musical components elude to the sound of our innate desire for a voice, be it quiet or loud, shared or in conversation with one’s self, or inside our own heart. I use tape, charcoal and pencil to highlight or hide or mask or create depth in these surfaces and stories…We are always seeking something new in order to become something different than we were only a moment ago- it often is rough, tearing or ripping at something, or rubbed or scratched at…or perhaps we just need a brief moment to pause and see and listen to the world we are experiencing. I attempt to bring all these living experiences, visible or invisible, into the simple world of my collages.

-Michael Deragon

About

I was raised in a small town in New Hampshire and spent my youthful days running in forests, swimming in any water I could find and playing as much make believe as I could. Being an only child and spending most of my time alone I delved into books, the radio, building odd things, writing and drawing.

I attended a small college in New Hampshire (BFA English/Psychology) where I began playing in bands and spending days upon days in a library. I grew obsessed with jazz, psychedelic music, poetry, philosophy, magical realist literature, Surrealism and Dada. While my bands played endless gigs I began making collages for show flyers and this quickly led me to seek out and find the collage work of Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell, Hannah Hock, Romare Bearden, and the paintings of Jean Michel Basquiat, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Pablo Picasso, Eugene Delacroix, Goya and so many others. 

After completing college I moved to the seacoast of New Hampshire and to my surprise fell in love with surfing all year round...in blizzards, hurricanes and any time there was a bump in the water.  This love affair with the ocean changed everything and projected me into even deeper emotional and spiritual planes as well as landing for extended stay in Costa Rica and eventually landing in Southern California.

During my late 20smy love of Surrealism and collage brought me to Goddard College for an MA in Surrealism (2005), During my time there I pushed even harder into the collage realms and devouring everything I could about the DADA and Surrealist movement-from film to sound to poetry and all the visual landscapes they embarked upon. 

In 2007 I finally needed more ocean and warmer climates and left for Los Angeles and completed a MFA from CALARTS in 2009 (Music and Poetry). Since then I have been scoring films, recording music as Heliochrysum and m. deragon, publishing poems, showing collages and working as a college professor (Poetry, Music, Art/Film History/Critical Studies).

Private viewing rooms, artwork details and and collector acquisitions are available on ARTSY.

DOWNLOAD

Artwork Checklist (PDF)

DATES

OCTOBER 15, 2022 - JANUARY 15, 2023

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#MichaelDeragon