Kim Dorland visited MCA this past Thursday to share his work, and I actually left the lecture pretty happy that I stayed for it. He's a Canadian painter whose work is sponsored in three different galleries: Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica, California, Angell Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Mike Weiss Gallery in New York, New York. The very first thing I noticed from his work was the vivid and neon-like colors. The projector really didn't do a good job of displaying his work though, so I went back later and saw images on his website, and videos on YouTube, and I saw how much texture there was. He mentioned in the lecture that he goes through a lot of paint, and that he'll purchase about $4,000 worth of paint and it would be gone in a little over a month or so.
He grew up poor in rural Alberta, and a lot of the work he presented during the lecture were paintings inspired from his childhood experiences. He said although a lot of his paintings are of his childhood, he did not have the best family and he rarely goes back to visit them because he doesn't get along with them. In the image below, he said it represents his grandpa, who was actually the town drunk.
And this photo, I believe is called "Train Bridge," portrays an actual place (as most his works do) where kids (mostly teenagers) would go to hang out.
Dorland also mentioned that he has been with only one woman for twenty-one years. They started dating as teenagers and later married.He has painted her in what he calls her portraits, which are a little different than the traditional portraits I'm used to seeing. During the lecture he jokingly confirmed that despite what we may think of the paintings and how he depicts her in the image he does love his wife (see what he means below).
Dorland says he likes to mix different paints in his work, and sometimes there is so much paint on one composition that it takes a few people to set it up, and the paint even melts. One of his favorite painters he mentioned was Edward Hopper.
If you want to check out his website
click here.
Also, here's a short video I found on Vimeo:
Kim Dorland at Angell Gallery
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