Derek Penix | Variations on Many Themes

Derek Penix explores his various subjects in ongoing series

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

More than a decade ago, Southwest Art spotlighted a young, up-and-coming artist named Derek Penix. His star was on the rise, heading toward a bright future in fine art. Today, it is safe to say that Penix has arrived. Invitations to national shows come his way, and top honors from prestigious art organizations are also the norm—the painter has received more than 100 awards in the past decade from organizations such as the American Impressionist Society, the National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society, and the Oil Painters of America.

When we caught up with Penix at his California studio recently, he had just completed a 60-by-60-inch painting titled FEEDING FRENZY, part of an ongoing series on seagulls. Indeed, one of the first things to know about Penix is that he relishes exploring a subject in depth. “I find a subject which inspires me, and I stay on it for a while,” he says. “Then I switch to something else that calls me to paint it. I get my fill, and then I move on to what moves me. But on occasion, I return to an old flame.”

For Penix it’s fun to “dust off old subjects” and discover fresh new approaches. A review of his body of work reveals a range of themes, from apple trees to the Big Apple. Maggie Rey, co-owner of Claggett/Rey Gallery in Edwards, CO, says she has enjoyed carrying Penix’s work precisely because of the broad diversity of subjects he portrays. “Derek is not pigeonholed into one genre, and that freedom gives him a special artistic lens through which he presents dramatic perspectives and enticing environments,” Rey says. “His paintings are like portals, and you want to step through the threshold and into the painting to experience the cacophony of sounds and his dynamic palettes in real time.”

Penix isn’t sure how many seagull paintings have graced his easels over the past few years. But he remembers his inspiration for FEEDING FRENZY: In 2019, after teaching a workshop in Sarasota, FL, the artist visited nearby Anna Maria Island, a 7-mile strip of lush white-sand beaches along the Gulf Coast. He was a man with a plan—to photograph the graceful gulls in motion. The water was a stunning aquamarine color, an alluring tropical scene, he recalls. “We brought food to feed the birds and, like magic, they arrived in hordes,” Penix says. “I loved painting this piece because it isn’t the typical scene of calm seagulls flying off into the sunset but rather a chaotic feeding frenzy. I can still hear the seagulls when I look at the painting, and it takes me back to that moment in time.” Penix’s work has evolved in style over the years. Early in his career, French Impressionism captured his creative eye, and he even aspired to paint like Claude Monet. Beginning in 2006, while living in Tulsa, OK, he made multiple trips to France. The artist gathered reference material at outdoor markets, in the rural countryside, and along the French Riviera.

Once back in his studio, Penix created pieces that were overtly impressionistic without much regard to edge work. He enjoyed using an array of repetitive marks, which resulted in “speckled” imagery when viewed up close; stepping back from a painting, he says, the marks resembled a recognizable shape with sharp edges.

Today Penix still classifies his work as impressionistic, but he qualifies the term, describing his approach as more “fluid” than in earlier days. “My colors melt more into each other, with each brush stroke telling a story in a smoother tone,” he says. “It’s still a mess up close, but my work has a more seamless transition when stepping back from the painting.”

Anyone who knows Penix well has heard him credit his wife, Catherine, for the long string of awards he began winning a decade ago. She pushed him to enter competitions when he did not think that his work was good enough. “I have never enjoyed putting my work out there to be judged,” Penix says. “It’s kind of a raw, humbling feeling to subject yourself to. My wife researched and entered my paintings in every competition she could find. In the beginning, we could get into some heated arguments because she would think a painting was good enough, and I would not.”

At the time Penix was painting a series on boats along the scenic French Riviera, and he reluctantly agreed to let his wife enter the works into competitions. “The charge of excitement that I would get from being accepted into shows incentivized me to paint the next painting better than the last for the next competition,” he says. “It was like a sport, not really to be in competition with anyone else but in competition with myself.”

At about the same time, Penix began searching for formal art training. As a self-taught artist, he realized there was much to learn. A gallery director recommended several artists, and Penix chose Denver-based painter Quang Ho, signing up for a three-day workshop. In the years that followed, Penix continued to study with Ho, flying to Denver for private instruction. “Quang opened the doors for me to understand all the basic things about painting, like blocking. I gained a better understanding of shapes and value, texture and edges,” Penix says. “After that, I started painting differently. My paintings improved in quality, and my art really took off.”

Today Penix, his wife, and their four children make their home in Temecula, CA, a city about halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. The family moved there in 2020 from Tulsa, and life has been busy. The couple’s fourth child, Jack, was born last year. And in 2021 Penix taught seven painting workshops, traveling about 7,000 miles on an extended road trip along the East Coast. He describes it as an intense but rewarding experience working with eager participants in Richmond, VA, Raleigh, NC, and Franklin, TN, among other places.

This year Penix plans to stay closer to home and see more of his children. His studio is in the spacious garage, with 10-foot ceilings, attached to the family’s house. “I haven’t been active in many shows this past year,” he says. “I am starting to transition out of workshops to be able to put my full focus on painting. I am excited to be able to put my undivided attention on developing my own work.”

These days he also enthusiastically embraces exploring California’s treasure trove of natural wonders, which fuel his imagination. The move to the West Coast has been tantamount to an artistic shot in the arm, as he went from the landlocked Midwest to being less than an hour from the Pacific Ocean.

Recently Penix packed up his cameras and his drone and drove north along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway toward the storied art colony of Carmel. When a scene called out to him, he jumped out of his car and launched the drone over the Pacific. In POINT LOBOS, created from the reference material gathered during the trip, Penix captures the high drama of crashing waves rolling toward a rocky coastline south of Carmel.

Sometimes his family accompanies him on his painting adventures. For example, his wife and children piled into the car this fall and headed for the small town of Julian, a historic gold-mining town east of San Diego famous for its magnificent views and apple trees. “Julian is a lovely town nestled in the mountains, surrounded by pine trees, with vast rolling hills and open land,” he says. “It’s one of my favorite landscapes in the West.” Penix says his family gathered apples while he gathered reference material for his ongoing apple-tree series.

The day before we spoke with Penix, he had accompanied his children on a school trip to the San Diego Zoo. He did not expect to encounter reference material, so he left his camera (and his drone) behind. But once at the zoo, his eye caught a flash of bright pink in the distance. Moving closer, he realized it had come from a flock of flamingoes. His cell phone came to the rescue, and he was able to gather material for future paintings. Could a new series be in the offing? “I have found that I am drawn to wildlife lately,” the artist says. “I have never thought of myself as a wildlife painter, but it seems to be a recurring theme. I love the life in these subjects—they bring movement, color, and energy to the canvas. I don’t set out to paint animals; it has just been something that finds me, and I can’t turn down the opportunity.”

representation
Claggett/Rey Gallery, Edwards, CO; Gallery 1261, Denver, CO; Vanessa Rothe Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Royce Myers Gallery, Tulsa, OK; www.derekpenix.com.

This story appeared in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.