Her images are often beautiful, conjuring metaphysical and metaphorical layers of meaning. Derges has said that ideas propelling her projects were "about becoming close to the element of the river, as a metaphor of immersion and participation." Her methods have been consistently experimental, a constant search for new camera-less methods of recording imagery, including the photogram, while directly connecting with the world she observes. Exploring the intuitive, she says, "I often have begin with something that is unknown to me that I have a sense I need to know about. I'm trying to dig into the unconscious and into the unknown... I begin with an intuition or a sense of an area that I want to explore but it is not fully conscious." Cycles of life, death and change, and their relationship to physical experience are explored through visual metaphors that borrow from science, nature, psychology, and art.