Photo by http://nudashank.blogspot.com/
If you visit Michael Dotson’s solo show at Nudashank before it closes tomorrow, you will know immediately why its title, Curves, is crossed out. There simply are no curves. Every line is straight and executed with such technical tour de force that you will not quite believe that it has been painted. In a delightful way, these works reassert the primacy of paint—even in the digital age when effects can be so easily accomplished with pixels. To see how the paintings are made, view the creation of one, where even rounded pods are composed of innumerable straight lines. The secret lies in what must be miles of masking tape.
Photo by http://nudashank.blogspot.com/
In Michael’s Unidentified Floating Object, a ‘rounded’ form floats in a desolate, arctic landscape. Innumerable overlapping triangles comprise the freezing ocean water and thin pieces of ice suspended in it. Like many of Michael’s paintings, Unidentified Floating Object invites us to develop a narrative. What is this object? A castaway igloo? The engine of a fallen airplane? The eyeball of a giant? How did it get here?
Michael’s paintings often appear like stages awaiting actors (or video game settings awaiting avatars). Whether virtual or real, these spaces are nonetheless so appealing that we feel compelled to enter.
Photo by http://nudashank.blogspot.com/
In Living Room,modern zebra sectionals and turquoise minimalist tables stand before a vista of palm trees at sunset. Dark corners with thinly painted bars flank the brilliantly colored landscape. Are these walls or are these views into outer space? Is the pattern on the rug just a shadow? We are now confused about what is virtual and what is real, what is solid and what is air or light or shadow. The installation at Nudashank heightens this anxiety by adding a zebra rug and two potted palms in front of Living Room.
Window, completed just the night before the show opened, is deceptively simple. You really have to be there to fully appreciate the effect of these four paintings – all of walls made of black brick. Each has grouting in a different color of day glow that reverberate forcefully against the white gallery walls.
It’s gratifying to see Michael’s work unfold in this solo show. Last year, Nudashank’s Seth Adelsberger and Alex Ebstein featured Michael, who is an M.F.A. candidate at American University, Washington, D.C., in their group show Picture Plane.
Tomorrow, Saturday, November 6, is your last chance to see Curves at 405 West Franklin Street. And don’t miss the closing party tomorrow evening from 6 to 9 p.m.
Filed in: Nudashank.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 