Deryn Cowdy

England

Born in London, Deryn grew up in an artistic family who lived on a small farm in the Welsh countryside.

Deryn earned her Fine Art Degree from Bath Academy of Art and while living in London, worked as a scenic artist for theater and photography studios. She later worked with a team of conservators restoring painted finishes for the National Trust.

Her wild decision to move to Miami was based on the opportunity to paint murals and faux finishes for Versace and other residences of exquisite design. She is collected moreover by Cher, and Madonna.

Deryn’s love for nature and vast wilderness drew her to the Florida aquifer, the source of all well-being for the communities reliant on the Everglades water source.

Her current body of work is largely based on her observations from these thousand island marshlands.

She also tends to her wild garden, which she created as a habitat for birds, fish, and insects who are naturally drawn to it as a sanctuary in our ever-increasingly developed land area.

Deryn’s works range from exquisite delicate murals of painted spoonbills and wood storks to golden photographs of the nature that surrounds us. She combines her photographic images with metal leaf and as if by alchemy creates a unique imagery that conjures the sun’s interplay over the waters of these 1000 islands.

Deryn lives in Miami with her husband, their two children, and, what she esteems, an unruly dog. Her most recent mural work was commissioned for the Setai.

WORKS

Big Cypress 1

2023
Archival pigment print on UV poly, gold leaf, plexi frame, 49.5” x 68”

SPOONBILLS

2022
Oil paint on paper, 108” x 48”

Untitled 1

2023
Archival print on UV poly with gold leaf, 14” x 30”

Big Cypress 3

2023
Archival pigment print on UV poly, gold leaf, plexi frame, 40” x 64”

Wood Storks

2023
Oil paint on silver leaf paper, 108” x 54”

Untitled 2

2023
Archival print on UV poly with gold leaf, 18” x 37.5”

Elements

2023
4-panel paravent screen, oil on canvas, framed in hardwood cherry, 6’ x 8’

Herons

2021
Diptych oil paint on canvas, 4’ x 6’

Untitled 3

2023
Archival print on UV poly with gold leaf, 24” x 36”

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DERYN COWDY

England

I am interested in the similarities between weeds and human populations; their joint migrations, both refugees who are welcome in some places but chased out of others.

During the Covid pandemic I took long walks through the Everglades, foraging for images. Focusing on outer reflections led to inner-reflection, and deepened my connection to the environment, I became immersed in the reflections on water and the organic structures within nature.

Photography allows me to re-examine these images later in the studio, and I find unexpected layers within the reflections on the garden ponds and wild water surfaces. Below the clouds’ random patterns, I see unexplained but magnetizing life and decay revealed in organic harmony-raw red rotting leaves, microscopic specks of mysterious life, slime coated aquatic plant life.

Using precious metal leaf to gild these images allows me to utilize a more conventionally valued material such as silver or gold to elevate the status of each image and change a simple photograph into a unique object with a solid presence. I push the method of oxidization to its limits to produce unique surfaces- beautiful and destroyed simultaneously to reflect the alchemy of nature.