Derek Owens, The Natural World
The banners for 2026 will be from the work of Derek Owens, whose magic-realist fiction and AI work, in both image and animation, have been gleefully featured here for some time now.
These images begin a sequence of mixed media oil paintings in which I re-interpret drawings I made between the ages of 3 and 5. I sometimes wonder if every artist is, to some degree, often attempting (and failing) to re-enter that primal state of mind when “art” had yet to surface as a concept; when there was just the act of creation for its own sake. —D. E.