In the “Pre-Fluid” period the focus was on the use of color and mixed media. There was a need to simplify the process of drawing which usually tended to be a dense composition of abstracted elements scribbled with a ballpoint pen. Secondly the possibility of using a narrative as a way to guide the creation of the drawing was an exciting and new direction in Dodalism.

The first drawing “Clusterfucked universe” was guided by the theme of a chaotic universe with exploding supernovas and planets laid out in a somewhat geometrical pattern. Using crayons was fun as large areas got filled with scribbles of colour, an interesting continuation of a method exclusively executed with pens up to this point. The marks themselves were direct references to the story that was unfolding as it was being drawn. One moment a planet would be distinguished by a scribble of colour and the next moment a scribble of a supernova explosion would cover the planet up. The drawing was finalized by bumping up the chroma with acrylic paints which led to some great optical mixing and glazing effects solidifying the decision to further explore the mixed media possibilities.

The Wakan Tanka drawings are a tribute to Canadian Native art styles which I really enjoy. The fluidity of line, colour and textures used on a verity of surfaces imbedded with mythologies and stories are all things which I chose to reflect through this theme. I came across the persona of Wakan Tanka while doing research for an illustration I was working on for a band “Tonka & Puma”. Months later when the British Petroleum oil spill happened in 2010 I decided to respond by creating a large drawing which drew most of its narrative from a story by Carl Safina about a dolphin that was drowning having filled its lungs with oil. Adopting the Dodalism approach I started by creating a border out of random shapes which are associated with the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. The images within the boarder are symbolic elements representing the story as well as some of my personal comments on the human condition. A booklet was later made with images and writing related to the drawing which was distributed in a limited run around Toronto Ottawa and Montreal.  Wakan Tanka and the orgy of life was a fun project used to further explore narrative possibilities and the use of mixed media. The shapes which originally were symbolic of the four elements were now treated as though each had its own personality something I also explored through an evolving series “Germs”.

The idea of shapes with individual personalities was applied in the next project “Good Things”. The crayons were used to establish a sort of a containment field with energetic curved lines tracing out a circle within a circle frame. The shapes within the containment field are an interpretation of a liquid swirling inside a jar. Having completed the commission I had a clear idea where I wanted to concentrate my energy for the next body of work which would be the “Fluid” series.

BACK to Dodalism

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”     Albert Einstein

“The notion of separation of functions, light versus dark, evil versus good, may be straightforward enough in Islam-…-but go back a bit and you see that it’s a pretty recent fabrication” Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses pg. 334

Nuclear Enlightenment is a series of eleven paintings portraying the ‘annihilation of the self’.

My approach to painting this idea was to take two seemingly opposing visions and fuse them into one. I imagined the instant where the atomic fire begins to dissolve, evaporate the self and I overlapped it with the idea of the instance where a person becomes enlightened, their idea of the self dissolving in light.

The paintings range between realistic and iconic approaches to portraiture. Each is painted from the reversed side of the glass.  I chose to use images of children in a state of joy as a reference. This is part of my ongoing exploration of a child’s face as a metaphor/symbol for enlightenment which originated in my previous “Grown up Child” body of work. Nuclear Enlightenment also continues my ongoing exploration of dualities their codependency and how they can inform a common shared reality, as is the case of the notions of light and darkness, life and death.

The “Cut-outs” body of work explores emboss and relief-like techniques with drawn and printed images. These techniques generate an illusion of three dimensional quality in each of the images. It is a multi-media body of work utilizing different types of materials such as plywood, acrylic paints, ballpoint pens, printed images, foam core and artist board.

This particular direction is part of my ongoing experimentation in the creation of depth in two-dimensional imagery.

What motivated me to create “The Grown up Child” mixed-media drawing body of work was a recurring event where every so often I would come across a grown up individual who appeared to embody a child like quality which emanated from their being. It was always a positive experience that would make me smile as though I just witnessed something silly. With time I came to relate this experience to witnessing a person in touch with their inner child. In 2004 I set out to create a series of mixed-media contemporary drawings with the goal of portraying adults who embodied such a quality.

In my thesis paper I argued that children possess a certain innocence that has not yet been affected by societal pressures. Their emotions are genuine, not yet influenced by predetermined standards and expectations. In order to depict this innocence I chose the child’s face as a metaphor for the Inner Child, the very core of our being; what Carl Gustav Jung referred to as our “original self”.

My research focused on medical and philosophical literature on the notions of the inner child, child development, and child education. My artistic exploration worked with two key parameters. The first one being the need to create a series of mixed-media contemporary drawings where the work would reflect two qualities of the human condition: fragility and adaptation. The second parameter was to make work that would reflect the personalities of friends I was drawing as well as themes I wanted to explore when working with models who were strangers.

“The Grown up Child” mixed-media body of work is a rich visual landscape which intertwines philosophical and esoteric themes. It captures the quality of beauty which emanates from within the figures, the beauty of innocence, wonder and imagination.

The experimental work on glass and plexi-glass is my new creative outlet. The focus is on painting images that work with the transparency of the surface. My experimentation includes working in reverse and on multiple transparent/translucent surfaces with different mediums, mainly acrylic inks and oil sticks. This direction has been largely inspired by the animation techniques of painting on transparencies (i.e. glass, Mylar).

I am continually fascinated by the unique qualities of how the paint sits on and is seen through the glass. The qualities of the reflections and shadows animate the work. The potential of creating depth using multiple layers of transparent materials have made this a key direction in my practice.