DAYNA DERKSEN

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Dayna Derksen is a queer interdisciplinary artist whose practice is based on tenderness (to hold), play (to touch), and trust (to be held). The subjects of their work are addressed as they are in their inherent wholeness, using found objects and spaces in their installations as sites for decoration and gathering. Through this process, the space between the object that is and the labour given to it questions understandings of property, ephemera, intimacy, love, and beauty. Derksen reclaims religious imagery in their own name to understand a religious upbringing in a rural community with beliefs so delicate in their opposition to Derksen’s current identity and space. Their work involves movement between intuition and intention, transcribing ideas between the mediums of drawing, text, video, and sculpture. Through imbuing intuitive works with permanence – etched, burned, and bodily – they navigate the desire to trust.