The Gallery is pleased to present Keenan Derby's first solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, entitled "Waveforms". This series of paintings was inspired by a 17th century ceramic tile depicting the expedition of a Dutch whaling party, which Derby found in "Secrets of the Sea", a 1971 copy of Reader's Digest. "I was immediately drawn to the luminous blues and whites, and the complex and elegant lines tracing ships, waves, and whalers."

The tile's lines serve as the foundation of Derby's paintings, moving in and out of focus as he adds thick, shimmering, coats of acrylic and sand. "The work is finished when the layers of opacity begin to glow with an inner light, and the paint functions on its own terms."

In addition to cool, rocky, ocean waves, Derby is inspired by the warm, hazy, vistas of Southern California. These paintings hug the surface close, lines of paint seeping into an ochre desert of raw linen. Just as the mast of a ship might appear, bobbing, in the thick paintings, here cacti and ancient pines glimmer, like a mirage, within the flat weave of the surface. "Flanking perception and invention, a finished work is a moment cast in stone, a flawed memory solidified into reality, asserting its own place in the world."