Memory is essential to art. Art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist refers to a continuously articulated struggle between the past, the present and the future. He has said, “It is urgent to protest against forgetting.” American artist Dana Louise Kirkpatrick’s work is the embodiment of this protest, simultaneously evoking a tribute to her modernist predecessors while layering her own contribution to the conversation being had amongst artists that span decades and continents. Kirkpatrick creates expressive large-scale drawings and paintings that command immediate attention. Classically trained, her oeuvre draws on the annals of art history. Art giants Picasso (b. 1881, Spain), De Kooning (b. 1904, Netherlands) and Basquiat (b. 1960, United States) live most fervently in Kirkpatrick’s work, and in so doing, she creates a vehicle for not only preserving their memories but also breathing them new life. Her own milieu, living in New York City in the of modern humankind and our culture. Her background entrenched in contemporary society – unsettled, wrought with contradictions and new complexities that surpass the dynamics of even a decade ago – creates a new tension that looks to and reveres the past, while engaging in a continuous negotiation with the present, and surveying the future at arm’s length, partly with suspicion and partly in anticipation of something better.
East LA Dead Boys - 2012 graphite, charcoal, watercolor on paper
22 X 30 in.
Strange Fruit - 2012 graphite, charcoal, oil stick on antique linen
32 x 27Âź in.
Much - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
55Âź X 26Âź in.
Bones at El Pescador - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, oil stick on paper
74Âź x 38 in.
Carnival Barker* - 2011 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
29½ x 22 in.
solve. Married to that gutting. Translating what I see. The lengths the Western world goes to avoid discomfort. The consumption... I don’t run from that.”
Nude Study 1 (color) - 2012 graphite, charcoal on paper
29他 x 22 in.
King - 2012 graphite, charcoal, house paint on canvas
54½ x 27½ in.
Rue de Moulins - 2011 charcoal, pastel, graphite, water color on paper
68¼ x 42 in.
Like Basquiat, America’s “Black Picasso” as he so detested being called, Kirkpatrick talks to the great history of painting that came before her. She speaks of the artists she admires’ “ability to translate their inner demonic dialogue into undeniable beauty” and Kirkpatrick succeeds in doing the same. Amidst the angst and turmoil in her work, serenity persists. Kirkpatrick looks towards the things we in, the displaced and the unseen…all of that drives me. I’m not remotely interested in the lives of the comfortable or privileged. Those aren’t my heroes.”
Prospero 5 Cents* - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, house paint on Belgian linen
78ž x 52½ in.
Mississippi KO - 2012 graphite, pastel, house paint, spray paint on canvas
52 x 52 in.
Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston May 1964 - 2011 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
79他 x 41他 in.
Lunches for Colored Only - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
80 x 42 in.
Divide + Conquer - 2013 92 x 41他 in. graphite, charcoal, pastel, sumi ink on gessoed acid free paper
42 - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
85 x 41 他 in.
Sail - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel on paper
44½ x 30 in.
Port Au Prince - 2012 charcoal, pastel, graphite on paper
41½ x 71 in.
Kirkpatrick’s nomadic, unsettled existence is evident in her choice of materials – house paint, scrap Expressionist compatriots. Instead of textbook oils, she has “fallen into the habit of using hard compressed charcoal, pastel, house paint, graphite, on anything around…” Not stopping at found materials, Kirkpatrick is preoccupied with found imagery and prevailing memes, referencing popular culture, the art canon, everyday iconography and banal objects. Sports, music, popular culture, religion, war, race, poverty, love and sex are just some of the themes that abound, while creating giant chasms in the viewer’s sense of ease. But while her content is fraught with antagonism there is almost always an underlying humor – a commedia dell’arte that turns her grim subject matter into wry, sardonic commentary. and dark or shaky and scrawling, dependent on the attitude of each piece. Her later work speaks sections with color blocking, often dripping from her subjects, the paint visibly running down their forms. Using these striking contrasts she echoes her thematic concerns.
The Fighter - 2012 graphite, pastel, spray paint, house paint on paper
39 x 27Âź in.
Devil Be a Paper Tiger - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel on paper
99Ÿ x 41ž in.
Antonio Keller, New York - 2012 graphite, pastel, house paint on paper
98Ÿ X 47½ in.
Subway Drummer - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on paper
59½ X 52¼ in.
in paint on the C train to a dirty warehouse in SoHo, she has seen a thousand images by the time she gets to her studio each day. These inform her creative process, as she channels and reimagines the phantasmagoria of her surroundings. “I pull from sources,” she says. “Other artists’ work...rip pages from art books...a drummer on the subway begging...it just happens. I don’t think about it. I usually sit against the wall staring down a blank surface. Then it comes…then it’s gone.” She is “not impressed by projectors, computers, stolen images, or studio assistants painting spots”. While reappropriating, her creation is her own, constantly evolving and constantly “looking back and reissuing a new translation”.
$5 Man Bomb Pop - 2011 mixed media on drafting paper
60 x 42 in.
Kirkpatrick refuses to be a passive observer. The role of the artist is no longer merely craftsman, standard. As an artist Kirkpatrick’s heightened sense of empathy, self-awareness and forthright disposition is supremely evident in her impassioned technique. Together with her rich knowledge of art history, this delivers a compelling combination of the familiar and the refreshingly unique.
Con Job - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on canvas
99Ÿ x 62ž in.
Like Nobody’s Fucking Business - 2013 graphite, charcoal, pastel, house paint on canvas
105 x 74 in.
Hamlet - 2012 graphite, charcoal, conte stick, house paint on paper
23½ x 17ž in.
Quick Sand - 2013 30 x 24 in. ballpoint pen, pencil, highlighter, acrylic paint
Torment Saint - 2013 30 x 24 in. ballpoint pen, pencil, highlighter, acrylic paint
A Cheap Shot to the Ribs - 2013 30 x 24 in. ballpoint pen, pencil, highlighter, acrylic paint
Iggy - 2013 on paper
Cafe Stella Table Cloth Drawings
30 x 24 in.
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
New York Gone - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, oil stick, pencil on paper
86 x 42 in. Collection Of David Jacobs
Mona Lisa Got Popped - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, spray paint on cardboard
60 x 48 in. Collection of Pete Weiss
Improving Non-Stop - 2012 graphite, charcoal, house paint on canvas
106 x 98 in. Collection of Timothy Hutton
Rebel Forces - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, house paint on canvas
106 x 106 in. Collection of Jon Bresler
Nude Study - 2012
42 x 32 in.
Black Mississippi - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, pencil on canvas
32 x 46 in. Collection of Tim Armstrong
‘66 Mustang - 2012 graphite, charcoal, house paint on paper
36 x 32 in. Collection of Timothy Hutton
Street Hustle - 2012 pencil and house paint on paper
36 x 24 in. Collection of Dan McCann
Blew His Boot Off - 2012 graphite, charcoal, pastel on paper
36 x 24 in. Collection of David Jacobs
Black Water - 2012
42 x 32 in.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Dana Louise Kirkpatrick (b.1976, Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an artist gaining rapid renown for her bold, large-scale artworks in mixed media. Her work references elements of Modern art, in particular the dichotomies and contradictions embedded in contemporary Western culture, religion and humanity, using forceful iconography and a highly expressive technique. Raised in Washington DC in an unstable, at times volatile household, Kirkpatrick was educated privately but lived on the fringes, struggling to stay in school and at one point becoming homeless. She graduating with honors in 2001. Here she received the DaVinci Medal for Excellence in Studio Art and the Misty Dailey Award for Outstanding Work in Studio Art. Kirkpatrick has work in a large number of private and Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Justin Timberlake, Tim Armstrong, Timothy Hutton, and Wil-Dog Abers, Pete Weiss, as well as Lyndley and Samuel Schwab, Timothy Hutton, Tony Hawk,
She has held one solo exhibition in New York City, taken part in numerous group shows and donated work to many charity auctions for organizations Conservatory of Music, The MusiCares and
The artist has been living and working between New York City and Los Angeles for the past nine years. Since relocating, she has trained at The Art Students League of New York. Her current studio is based in SoHo in Lower Manhattan. She also consults for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles.