Gerald DeLoach is a native of the Mississippi Delta. Influenced by Henry Hensche of the Cape Cod School, DeLoach paints luminous canvases that reflect his fascination with the subtleties of the Delta landscape and the elusive radiance of southern light.
From Art in Mississippi by Patti Carr Black:
“Gerald DeLoach is a native of Coahoma County and still lives and paints there. He earned his Bachelor’s in education and an MA in Art Education from Delta State University and attended Henry Hensche’s Cape Cod School in the summers of ’71 and ’72. After a few exhibitions at local festivals, he withdrew and for almost a decade explored and solidified his technique. “I used paint in as many was as I could think of – splattered, glazed, stippled, scumbled, burned, stripped, and sanded. I destroyed much of what I did during this period, but I acquired a new sense of freedom and control.” DeLoach’s control is in his palette. Color is much more effective for expressing the illusion of three dimensions than value or line, he has said. Central to that knowledge is the ability to express light in different atmospheric conditions. He works in the Mississippi Delta, and misty, foliage-right landscapes with no people present characterize his work. He wrote, “I feel that the act of painting outdoors is a form of meditation and study, of which the painting is a by-product. In painting directly from nature, phenomena that would normally go unnoticed come to my consciousness and are recorded. The ordinary landscape becomes extraordinary and can no longer be taken for granted. In painting, I attempt to share my experience of the infinite qualities of the visual world.”