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Interview with DAN ATTOE
in preparation for his 2009 show at WX
by Evan Lenox, Summer 2009
Evan: Has living in the Northwest impacted your art-making process, or the subject matter of your work? If so, how?
Dan: Where I've chosen to live definitely has affected my work. I knew that when I got out of grad school where I moved would influence my work, so I chose a part of the country that has a wide variety of climate and topography in close proximity. I was born in this part of the country, so I already knew its character a little, and in some ways I think I imprinted on it as a kid, so the landscape of the Northwest would occasionally show up in my work even before I moved out here. Now, I'm just in a place where I can go kayaking, surfing, snowboarding and hike up mountains or through dense forests whenever I want. This exposure to these things and this area seeps into my work since my work was, by design, intended to be sensitive to my life and environment.
E: That’s great, I can definitely see your environment playing a large role in your work. On that note, how is it that you began incorporating text into the environments in your paintings? Does your text usually come before the painting, or the painting before the text?
D: The text has been in the paintings ever since I started painting when I was fourteen. I think the influence of album covers with band names and album titles had something to do with that, as did skateboard graphics and the Far Side comics. The text and painting come about the same way; when I'm doing my daily drawing I also write things around it. So, I have this huge backlog of little phrases and images to pull from when I do my paintings. Sometimes the text is attached to the image immediately, and other times I'll finish painting an image, and then look through my writing to see if there's something that would fit on it. A lot of the time, the image gets attached to writing in the drawing stage.
E: Your neon installations appear to be a continuation of the subject matter you depict in your paintings, and they both incorporate text with imagery. Do you have similar thought and work processes for these pieces as you do your paintings? What is it that interests you about these neon lights?
D: The drawings for the neons happen the same way the drawings for the paintings do. They're part of the daily drawing process. The neon drawings are sort of peripheral to the more polished tonal drawings that become paintings. They're sort of like little demons that poke at the refined drawings, making fun of them, and pointing out the simultaneous futility that comes with being so careful and thoughtful. In many ways these thoughts are just as important as the complex and precious ones.
Neon is a medium that has such an atmosphere to it, and it carries a lot of interesting history from advertising, and nightlife. Everybody has an association with it already, so it plays with that. When I started using it, I was thinking primarily of the beer signs that you find in bars, that's how I related to them. Now, my relationship to neon has broadened, partially because I've spent so much time just thinking about the simple properties of it - light, warm/cool colors and just the movement of the electricity and light through the tubes which give the sculptures a sort of "pulse" that can relate to any animation done with the lighting.
E: I like how you are using materials that are rich with associations; I get this ominous feeling when I imagine your signs being displayed in public places, while I simultaneously can’t refrain from laughing out loud. What do you have planned for your upcoming show at Western? Will you be exhibiting some of these neon pieces, or will the work primarily consist of new paintings?
D: This show will consist of one painting, and several drawings. The drawings are in the style of the daily drawings that I make; they will be a combination of the type of drawing I use as a foundation for my paintings, and the type of drawing I use for my neons. Each daily drawing is very detailed, and some might be combined with more cartoony drawings and text.
E: How do you determine what it is you draw each day? Do think a lot about the subject matter, or does it come to you intuitively?
D: The daily drawings are an extension of my daily paintings, a past project. I draw whatever is holding my interest at the moment. These images usually pop into my head while I am doing something else, they are not necessarily images that I am looking for; they are peripheral images, not that intentional. I take time out of everyday to sit and clear my head, and draw whatever is on my mind. There is no overarching theme to my work, there are things that pop up frequently because of where I live, or because of things I was interested in as a kid, etc. I like to leave the subject matter open to interpretation.
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