East City Art – Wade Connor Interviews Michael Dotson

This post features Wade Connor’s interview with artist Michael Dotson, a participant in Conner Contemporary Art Academy 2010. Here is an excerpt:

“W: Is it right for me to assume that the work that you are doing, and its inspiration, has an architectural component?

M: Yes, it is architectural, but I wouldn’t say that I use any specific models as a specific inspiration. I’m very interested in architecture, especially modern architecture and the idea of it being kind of a failed utopia. It is something that I would like to learn more about. I’ve been reading a little bit about it. It is definitely interesting.

W: Taking a quick look around the room, you start with a perspective. Is that correct? Is that true for all your work? Do you always start with a vanishing point?

M: Pretty much, except for a few pieces like the one on the far wall and some of the drawings that I do. Basically, for all my paintings, I make the vanishing points. I usually don’t have a clear idea of what the painting is going to be so I’ll start with the points and then I might just try erecting a perspective and then say, “Oh, that could be a swimming pool or that could be a tennis court, or a UFO,” and I just kind of build it out from there…

W: Because you are working directly on canvas and you are working spontaneously, what you do is, in a way, a form of expressionism. And yet, you are working with straight lines; it is so squared off and so precise. How would you label your work? It’s not actually abstract. The work does have a quality of representing objects in the world that we recognize.

M: Yes, I would like it to be a middle ground between abstraction and recognizable forms. I would like to create something—maybe even try to make it a little unsettling, or just play with the space.

W: What would you use in your toolkit to make paintings unsettling?

M: I am just trying to make things that don’t make sense spatially. I have things that you can identify but then you notice things that make you question them. They just don’t make sense.

Click here to read the rest of the interview. For more information on Dotson, visit his website here.

Image in the post is of a Dotson painting.