Techniques
Hess says one of his biggest artistic influences is Gil Kane's "forced perspective" technique that his father introduced him to. Forced perspective is an art technique that creates an optical illusion making an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is by making it larger than the rest of the image. This artistic technique was so influential to his style, it became the title of his documentary, Forced Perspective which was released in 2016.
Another of Gil Kane's techniques called "window boxing" has also been very influential in Hess' art. Window boxing is a technique where a figure appears to break out of the frame to make it appear larger than life. This technique can be seen in many of Hess' early Euclid Tavern concert posters. [3]
Hess' technical understanding of human anatomy and fine art education set him apart from other artists of his time. Hess had several instructors, including his father, who were veterans of WWII. These early drawing instructors instilled a tough work ethic in Hess. Learning anatomy as a fundamental of art began falling out of fashion with the invention of the camera. When artists no longer had to draw recreations of realistic life, they were free to explore different types of drawing and expression.
Hess had an intuitive ability to draw and understand the human body but says that he needed instruction and direction: "I intuitively knew how to look and I understood to draw, it came naturally, but that was a problem in my early days. I 'knew better' than everyone else—and I was an out of control drunk maniac kid. I was a lot of trouble—but I would go to class and I'd look at other kids' drawings and think 'Yeah, I got you all beat, I'll see you in five weeks!'", he said in his documentary.
Although the ability to draw has always come easy for him, the process takes practice, "For years and years, I would just flip pages in sketchbooks and draw, draw, draw until something came out. That's a good way to approach it, I think." Talking about his artistic process, he explained that it doesn't always come out the way he wants or expects it to the first time, "Once I let go of the struggle and start sketching, it starts to come out. It'll never be completely pure, there are always filters that go through you. If you're tuned in, you can feel if it's flowing. There's something that we all tune in to, and we can be connected to it. It's a choice."
Career
The Euclid Tavern and beginnings as a poster artist
After returning to Cleveland, Hess got a job at a bar he frequented while living in Cleveland, the Euclid Tavern. Described by Hess as a "workingman's shot-and-a-beer-bar", the Euclid Tavern was known as being a hub for local and underground music. Here, Hess chopped chicken wings and took charge of booking bands. He soon began to curtail the kinds of the bands being brought to the tavern into something he liked and was comfortable with. He also started creating the promotional flyers and posters for the shows using his own unique vision and a play off the bands' names and genres. These flyers were the very beginning of Derek's career as an artist.
The first time Hess' work was recognized in collaboration with a musician was with the alternative metal band Helmet. The flyers and posters Hess created were the first in a series that were posted all over the area. The posters interested local art dealer William Busta, who then showed the flyers in his gallery. When Hess began using color graphics in his posters he received much more recognition and was featured in Newsweek magazine, in an article on new poster artists of 1994.
Fine art
Because of Hess' success as a poster artist, he had a built-in fan base when he wanted to make the jump back into fine art. Hess has been able to cultivate a large and expansive fan-base because of his wide appeal across genres. There are people who love his art because of its ties to music. Meanwhile, there are people who have never heard of the bands he has done work for that appreciate his fine art.
Hess' aptitude to convey his work through this showcase of fundamentals has helped elevate him from a poster artist to a skilled fine-artist utilizing pen and ink, acrylic paint, and silkscreen prints with handmade separations.
"I actually do very little poster art anymore, if any," Hess said. "I've been able to develop and mature as an artist and I'm lucky that people have been very accepting of the progression."
Hess' art has been able to transcend genres as well as generations, which is icing on the cake for the artist. "At the end of the day I'd like, ideally, for all of my art to be technically sound and that hopefully connects with people. That, to me, is what makes successful art."
Strhess music festivals and clothing line
Hess' music festivals, Strhess Fests and Strhess Tours, both in the United States and abroad made a huge impact in the hardcore and metal scenes in the early 2000s. These shows were a collaboration of music and art that featured bands such as Thursday, Shadow's Fall, Stretch Arm Strong, and Taking Back Sunday.
The first Strhess Fest was in 2003 in Austin, Texas during South by Southwest to a capacity crowd featuring Candiria, Every Time I Die, Nora, and Atreyu. The following festivals were renamed Strhess Tour, which ran from 2003 to 2007. The first was held in held in Cleveland, Ohio at the Scene Pavilion in the West bank of the Flats. Following the success of these shows, Strhess Tour traveled the U.S. and did a brief tour through Europe. The festivals featured both local and national bands, all of which were hand-picked by Hess himself, mostly hardcore and metal bands. [4]
Hess now owns his own Indiemerch clothing line, Strhess. His shirt designs can be seen worn by many famous musicians from the genres rock to indie. Shaun Morgan of Seether Was photographed wearing a Strhess shirt in the liner notes of One Cold Night , a live acoustic album. The Strhess Brand came about as Hess began making his move from poster art to fine art. The name came from the Strhess Tours and Festivals that fans were already familiar with. Because of this, Hess was able to bridge the gap between his music roots and newer ventures into fine arts.
Present day
Today, Derek is still creating art and frequently has art shows at his gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, The Derek Hess Gallery, located at 78th Street Studios in the Gordon Square Arts District. [5] Hess is currently doing talks and screenings across the country to promote his new documentary, Forced Perspective.
Personal life
Throughout his entire career, Hess struggled with alcoholism. He later realized his alcohol abuse was a way for him to self-medicate and cope with bipolar disorder.
He first went to rehab at 18. "The law said go to County Jail or go to rehab, so I said 'Let's go to rehab!'", Hess recalled. It was here that Hess learned about his mental illness and how it had been affecting his life without his knowing. After rehab, Hess was sober for 16 years, later falling off the wagon after a bad break-up.
His battle with alcoholism began to affect his art, "The work I was making when I was drunk or hungover wasn't as good as it could be. I would think I was doing a masterpiece, until I looked at it the next day," Hess said.
Hess eventually checked himself into rehab again. "I got there, it was noon, and they asked me if I'd been drinking. 'HELL YEAH, I've been drinking!' Because I'd get sick if I didn't drink," Hess said. Since then, Hess has remained sober and has found more effective ways to manage his bipolar disorder.
In his documentary, Forced Perspective, Hess spoke candidly about his battle with alcoholism and mental illness and has worked with several mental health organizations while promoting the film.
Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms for viewers with the intent of promoting sale and interest of products, services, and ideas. It relies on the iconic image to enhance recall and favorable recognition for a product or service. An example of a product could be a magazine ad promoting a new soda through complementary colors, a catchy message, and appealing illustrative features. Another example could be promoting the prevention of global warming by encouraging people to walk or ride a bike instead of driving in an eye catching poster. It communicates something specific to an audience.
Linear or point-projection perspective is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper.
Indigenous music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created by Aboriginal Canadians. Before European settlers came to what is now Canada, the region was occupied by many First Nations, including the West Coast Salish and Haida, the centrally located Iroquois, Blackfoot and Huron, the Dene to the North, and the Innu and Mi'kmaq in the East and the Cree in the North. Each of the indigenous communities had their own unique musical traditions. Chanting – singing is widely popular and most use a variety of musical instruments.
Eddie is the mascot for the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He is a perennial fixture of the group's artwork, appearing in all of their album covers and in their merchandise, which includes T-shirts, posters and action figures. On top of this, Eddie features in all of the band's concerts, as well as in the first-person shooter video game, Ed Hunter, the mobile game, Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast and a pinball game with the same name in 2018.
Aerial perspective, or atmospheric perspective, refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as viewed from a distance. As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases, and the contrast of any markings or details within the object also decreases. The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift toward the background colour, which is usually bluish, but may be some other colour under certain conditions.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Van Hemessen had visited Italy during the 1520s, and also Fontainebleau near Paris in the mid 1530s, where he was able to view the work of the colony of Italian artists known as the First School of Fontainebleau, who were working on the decorations for the Palace of Fontainebleau. Van Hemessen's works show his ability to interpret the Italian models into a new Flemish visual vocabulary.
István Orosz is a Hungarian painter, printmaker, graphic designer and animated film director. He is known for his mathematically inspired works, impossible objects, optical illusions, double-meaning images and anamorphoses. The geometric art of István Orosz, with forced perspectives and optical illusions, has been compared to works by M. C. Escher.
Yōga is a style of artistic painting in Japan, typically of Japanese subjects, themes, or landscapes, but using Western (European) artistic conventions, techniques, and materials. The term was coined in the Meiji period (1868–1912) to distinguish Western-influenced artwork from indigenous, or more traditional Japanese paintings, or Nihonga (日本画).
Donald Quan is a Canadian composer of film and world music, best known for writing the scores to television shows Relic Hunter and Mutant X.
Jacob Bannon is an American musician who is the vocalist, lyricist and graphic artist for the metalcore band Converge. He is the co-founder and owner of the record label Deathwish Inc. and the author of many visual works for independent punk rock and heavy metal musicians. Bannon has also composed and performed experimental music as Supermachiner with Ryan Parker and more recently as Wear Your Wounds.
J. Milton Dyer was a prominent Cleveland, Ohio architect.
Gerrit Albertus Beneker was an American painter and illustrator best known for his paintings of industrial scenes and for his poster work in World War I.
Jim Miller is a rock and roll guitarist, singer, teacher, recording artist and band leader in the “jam band” genre’. He has performed with Oroboros and his present group, JiMiller Band. He has also founded and organized several events, including co-founding the Rock & Reggae Festival and founding Lazy Daisy and DeadFall at Nelson Ledges State Park in northeast Ohio. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Jermaine Rogers is an artist and designer who came to prominence in the field of modern rock/pop poster art, also known as 'gigposter' art, as well as serigraph and fine art production. Rogers began his career in Houston, Texas as a member of the 1990s Texas poster-art scene, which featured fellow artists Frank Kozik, Uncle Charlie, and Lindsey Kuhn. Since 1995, Rogers has designed posters for a wide variety of musical acts, including Queens Of The Stone Age, David Bowie, Tool, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Childish Gambino, The Cure, Run The Jewels, Public Enemy, Soundgarden, and many others. His work is viewed as influential in the modern resurgence of the art form, "continuously crafting images that push boundaries, whether social, cultural, or aesthetic". His work is cataloged among the permanent collections of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio as well as the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington. His work has been featured in various media, including print, television, and feature film. Rogers currently resides in Houston, TX. USA.
Sean Taggart is an American illustrator and artist. He began his career in the early 1980s doing flyers and album covers for bands in the New York Hardcore scene, such as Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, and the Cro-Mags, and was the artist of the iconic Crumbsuckers first album cover. He has also done art for the bands Carnivore, Prong, and Napalm Death, among many others.
Drew Struzan is an American artist, illustrator and cover designer. He is known for his more than 150 movie posters, which include The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner, Mallrats, as well as films in the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Star Wars film series. He has also painted album covers, collectibles, and book covers.
Forced Perspective: The Art and Life of Derek Hess is a 2015 documentary about American based artist Derek Hess. The film tells the story of Hess's life and how his struggles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder have impacted his life and career.
Ken Eberts is an American painter who has been a major contributor to the automotive art genre. He is a founding member of the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS), and has been its president since its inception in 1983.
Scrojo is an American poster artist, illustrator and graphic designer. He is particularly known for his prolific work in the music industry and the surf and skate community. He has illustrated over 2,000 posters to date for concerts and other music events. Many of those for the Belly Up Aspen in Aspen, Colorado, as well as the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California, where he has been the resident artist for 30 years, beginning at the age of 19. Scrojo has also regularly worked for such notable venues as The Fillmore, The Casbah, Alamo Drafthouse (Austin), The Troubadour and House of Blues.
Chuck Sperry is an American artist best known for his screen prints on paper and oak panel, his limited-edition rock posters for bands such as Widespread Panic and Pearl Jam, and his political protest art. Since 1985, Sperry's iconography has ranged from astronauts walking on the surface of the moon to portraits of performers as varied as Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Chrissie Hynde. Beginning in 2010, many of Sperry's prints have featured images of female muses from Greek mythology.
