Big and Major

 

Deric Ott’s first solo exhibition, presented at Pocket Utopia in October 2024. The exhibition brought together a series of oil pastel works on paper and acrylic paintings on canvas, centered around stylized portraiture and an early exploration of scale, color, and surface.

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Created shortly after relocating to New York, the work reflects an initial response to the city as a space of expansion, energy, and possibility. Bright, layered color, particularly pinks and blues, alongside exaggerated facial features such as lips and eyelashes, contribute to a visual language that is both playful and confrontational. The works operate between control and spontaneity, balancing expressive mark-making with a developing sense of structure.

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With a heightened intuitiveness and exploratory nature, Big and Major establishes many of the visual and conceptual threads that continue to appear in his work, including stylization, emotional tension beneath a controlled surface, and an interest in how identity is constructed and performed.