Derek Buckner

Who is Derek Buckner?

Derek Buckner is an American realist painter in New York City. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and has exhibited in New York City, East Hampton, and Todo Santos, Mexico. His father, Walker Buckner, is an important realist painter in Boston. Buckner is the nephew of new music pioneer Thomas Buckner and children's advocate Elizabeth Buckner.

Derek Buckner is a Brooklyn-based artist who draws his inspiration from the beauty within the seemingly banal settings of suburban houses and intersecting freeways. These scenes are not meant to depict particular areas of the United States but archetypal representations of American suburban sprawl. It is not only the artist’s expressive, elemental brushwork that depicts vital images of the contemporary American landscape, but also his choice of subjects, which emphasize the disquiet of suburban life. Buckner states, “.... I am attracted to American productivity-- its fecundity and its excess in the twenty-first century. It is also by seeing beyond our preconceived notions of place that I find splendor—whether it be tract housing glowing in the evening sun or the intertwining of concrete freeways in the heat of the day.”