36” x 36” Mixed Media. 2026
“These paintings reference a dimension of childhood that exists before technology dominates attention—a tactile, embodied way of engaging with the world, rooted in direct sensory experience. Several works began as shared moments of painting with a young child Emery, who I have been making art with since she was in diapers and is a deeply engaged artist. Her natural, unselfconscious approach to mark-making helps me loosen control and reawaken presence. Together, we painted intuitively, allowing sensation and play to lead. Later, I returned to the studio to continue working with what had emerged.
In this way, Analogue speaks to a more natural, unmediated state of being human—one grounded in the body, the senses, and the quiet intelligence that emerges when we feel before we explain.”
~Deseré Pressey
Deseré Pressey is a Calgary-based visual artist whose painting practice moves away from heavy literal representation, allowing viewers to bring their own memory, emotion, and curiosity into the work. Meaning unfolds through this exchange, creating a quiet collaboration between the painting and the person encountering it. Rather than directing interpretation, her work invites wandering and felt experience—an inward intimacy she understands as a gentle form of re-wilding. Her practice includes ritual processes that quiet the mind and open the heart. When a felt sense of knowing arises within this openness, she enters a state of devotional art-making. In these moments, authorship recedes and the painting is received rather than constructed—emerging from a place available to us all. Pressey becomes, briefly, the hands through which the work passes, so it may be shared with those who are moved to recognize something within themselves.
36” x 36” Mixed Media. 2026
“These paintings reference a dimension of childhood that exists before technology dominates attention—a tactile, embodied way of engaging with the world, rooted in direct sensory experience. Several works began as shared moments of painting with a young child Emery, who I have been making art with since she was in diapers and is a deeply engaged artist. Her natural, unselfconscious approach to mark-making helps me loosen control and reawaken presence. Together, we painted intuitively, allowing sensation and play to lead. Later, I returned to the studio to continue working with what had emerged.
In this way, Analogue speaks to a more natural, unmediated state of being human—one grounded in the body, the senses, and the quiet intelligence that emerges when we feel before we explain.”
~Deseré Pressey
Deseré Pressey is a Calgary-based visual artist whose painting practice moves away from heavy literal representation, allowing viewers to bring their own memory, emotion, and curiosity into the work. Meaning unfolds through this exchange, creating a quiet collaboration between the painting and the person encountering it. Rather than directing interpretation, her work invites wandering and felt experience—an inward intimacy she understands as a gentle form of re-wilding. Her practice includes ritual processes that quiet the mind and open the heart. When a felt sense of knowing arises within this openness, she enters a state of devotional art-making. In these moments, authorship recedes and the painting is received rather than constructed—emerging from a place available to us all. Pressey becomes, briefly, the hands through which the work passes, so it may be shared with those who are moved to recognize something within themselves.
