Lucy Derrick
Ascent Within
"This work emerged from my physical and mental battle following ACL surgery this past year. The MRI of my knee joint becomes a climbing wall, transforming injury into terrain and fragility into structure. What is typically viewed as damage is reimagined into something navigable that demands patience, strength, and trust in one鈥檚 own body again.听
The climbers represent the nonlinear process of healing. Each figure occupies a different stage of healing, reflecting setbacks, breakthroughs, and the quiet persistence required to move forward. The bone, often associated with limitation and vulnerability, instead becomes a site of movement rather than restraint. Recovery is not a return to who we were before injury, but an active reconstruction of confidence and identity.听
The phrase 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 stop climbing when you get old; you get old when you stop climbing鈥 anchors this piece. Age and injury do not define our limits; our willingness to keep moving does. Each act of ascent whether physical, mental, or emotional is an affirmation of strength, adaptability, and the enduring capacity to grow."
Student Arts Program official selection 2026. Located in the Student Recreation Center.听
Migration Mosaic
"This piece reflects my relationship with movement, place and return. The birds act as both literal and symbolic migrants, echoing the way I have moved through different landscapes, communities and chapters of my life. Each place I鈥檝e been leaves a trace, shaping where I go next and where I feel called to return. Migration here is not just travel, but remembrance: an instinctive pull between past and future, belonging and becoming.听
The layered environments of sky, water, land and distant mountains are all photos I have taken. These geographies collapse into a single visual space. This mirrors how memories of place overlap rather than exist separately. By combining environmental imagery with stylized, almost fluid forms, I blur the line between the natural world and personal experience. My art becomes a way of mapping emotional landscapes onto physical ones.听
Through this work, I use nature as both subject and collaborator. The environment is not a backdrop, but an active force that informs identity, movement and resilience. The birds embody continuity, reminding us that to migrate is also to remember, and to remember is to stay connected."
Student Arts Program official selection 2026.听
About the Artist
Lucy Derrick is from Columbia, S.C., and is currently pursuing her Master鈥檚 of the Environment degree. Drawing inspiration from natural systems, particularly migration, landscapes and environmental cycles, her art blends organic imagery with expressive, layered forms. Through photography and mixed media, she reflects on how environments shape identity and how memory travels across geographies. Her practice is rooted in observation, personal experience and environmental awareness, using nature not as a backdrop but as an active presence. By merging art and environment, Derrick creates visual narratives that speak to belonging, return and the quiet persistence of change over time.听