Derick Wycherly
In Land
Land, water, and all life supported by Earth.
Missoula, 2024
In Land is an exhibition of prints and handmade paper focusing on land, water, and all life supported by Earth. Patterns repeat across variable editions, assembled into geometric fields raggedly divided by deckled edges. Each panel represents the collision and reorganization of materials and processes; an opening for chance operation.
Water is an essential collaborator in papermaking, leaving soft marks on freshly formed sheets as they drain through a matrix of fiber.
Each fiber is a legacy of organic growth — each vibrant pigment the slow fruit of geologic processes.These wall works are an abstract interpretation of land made to masquerade as commodity, but through its making is revealed to be a giver of life; a relation who needs protection from those who it supports. In Land represents a reciprocal relationship with Nature even as it underscores the impact of extractive economic practices and colonial occupation. As each individual sheet is claimed and sold the installation grows smaller. The symbol is broken down into its smallest parts and disseminated.
Installation views
Printmaker, papermaker, collaborator with water.
Derick Wycherly is a Missoula-based printmaker and hand papermaker whose wall works assemble variable-edition prints — drypoint, lithograph, letterpress, stencil, and pressure print — into geometric fields divided by deckled edges. Every sheet begins in water: pigmented cotton, flax, and abaca fibers drain through a mold, recording soft marks of the process that formed them.
His practice treats land as a relation rather than a commodity — each installation is designed to be claimed sheet by sheet, growing smaller as it disperses, its symbol broken down into its smallest parts and disseminated.