Fly rod and paint brush | Artist Derek DeYoung

Check out this por­trait about Derek DeY­oung and let´s book a flight to Mon­tana!

It’s hard to tell what came first for Derek DeY­oung ang­ling or art? At the age of 6, Derek was decla­ring to fri­ends and family that he wan­ted to be a famous artist. Ena­mou­red with ang­ling from an early young age DeYoung’s favou­rite sub­ject has always been fish. But by the time he left art school at the age of 23, DeY­oung rea­li­zed he nee­ded to push his art­work in a new direc­tion. In order to achieve his goal, he began to expe­ri­ment with com­po­si­tion, taking the fish’s form away and remo­ving the actually shape of the fish. By zoo­m­ing in extre­mely close on his sub­ject, DeYoung’s objec­tive was to por­tray trout in colour and pat­tern only. The result was the “Abstract Trout Face” series pain­tings. Derek’s con­tem­porary vision and vibrant use of colour chal­len­ged the tra­di­tio­nal, clas­sic style of ang­ling art­work and even­tually recei­ved cri­ti­cal acclaim and suc­cess. That suc­cess would lead to cor­po­rate col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons with Abel and Simms that would make the DeY­oung name into a brand. A con­se­quence that he strugg­les with as he attempts to build a life around his love of pain­ting and his pas­sion for fly fis­hing. Can­vas­fish is inti­mate por­trait of an artist and his work. It cele­bra­tes a small part of the cul­ture of fly fis­hing while not attempt­ing to docu­ment the pur­suit of it. Fil­med at DeYoung’s Livings­ton, Mon­tana stu­dio, Can­vas­fish chro­ni­cles DeYoung’s career as he paints his way through life, a fly rod in one hand and paint brush in the other.