Douglas Degges

fish and snakes, 18 x 14 inches, graphite and acrylic on canvas on panel, 2024. Douglas Degges

Douglas Degges (b. Shreveport, LA) is an artist and educator currently based in Utica, NY and Mansfield Center, CT where he is an Assistant Professor of Art in Painting and Drawing at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT. Douglas received his MFA from the University of Iowa and a BA in Studio Art from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. Most recently his work was exhibited at Proyecto T in Mexico City, Side Room Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Pratt Munson Gallery at the Munson Museum of Art in Utica, New York, the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cleaner Gallery + Projects in Chicago, Illinois, Whitespec in Atlanta, Georgia, Stove Works in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana. His work has been supported by several artist residencies including the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Stove Works, the Vermont Studio Center, Casa Lü, the Millay Colony, and Alfred University’s Düsseldorf Summer Artist Residency Program in Düsseldorf, Germany.

huckleberries with grasshopper leg, 12 x 16 inches, acrylic on canvas on panel, 2024. Douglas Degges.

Since Fall 2019, Douglas has been painting and drawing from cell phone photos supplied to him by his immediate family in an ongoing group text. His mom, dad, and brother, in keeping him up to date with what is going on in their lives, share the things they do and see near his childhood home in Louisiana. These images serve as an image bank from which he abstracts elements for a squirrel from memory, a visually and materially wide-ranging body of work. This project explores digital experiences, the pressure to possess a singular voice or vision, and the concept of home as something immaterial and held within the body.

that thing between my teeth is my foot, 16 x 12 inches, acrylic on canvas on panel, 2024. Douglas Degges.