OMNI is proud to announce its upcoming exhibition, Infinite Beings, featuring the work of New York-based artist, Michael Dotson. He received his MFA from the American University in Wash-ington D.C. and his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Michael has had notable international exhibitions which include solo exhibitions with Zieher Smith & Horton, New York, Salon Zurcher, Paris and a group shows with Brand New Gallery, Milan, and Dio Horia, Athens and Mykonos. Dotson’s work explores the ideas of psychedelic, experimental paintings that reflect and reimagine his long-standing interest in replicating the internal logic of video games and the...
OMNI is proud to announce its upcoming exhibition, Infinite Beings, featuring the work of New York-based artist, Michael Dotson. He received his MFA from the American University in Wash-ington D.C. and his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Michael has had notable international exhibitions which include solo exhibitions with Zieher Smith & Horton, New York, Salon Zurcher, Paris and a group shows with Brand New Gallery, Milan, and Dio Horia, Athens and Mykonos.
Dotson’s work explores the ideas of psychedelic, experimental paintings that reflect and reimagine his long-standing interest in replicating the internal logic of video games and the internet. His work originally stems from distorting found images from Disney movies but more recently, has progressed into his Infinite Beings series of works using freeform by hand and then scanning the drawings in photoshop to create the sketch for the painting, using the manipulated image on the screen as reference for his paintings.
Much like David Haperin in his book ‘Intimate Alien’ where he discusses looking into the darkness and ‘its the alien that winks back at us’ Dotson notes how we chose to anthropomorphise the things we don’t understand and our human curiosity ‘drives to seek answers beyond our reach.’
The exhibition with consist of 8 paintings on panel that lead the viewer into an experimental age of cyberspace. These alien personas that are depicted throughout his abstract expressions appear in virtual settings that he rendered with ‘vaporwave’ palettes creating almost hypnotic spaces and environments that are all encompassing. With the use of gesso, the paintings maintain a slightly rough, grainy texture creating a surface similar to that of watercolour paper on panel. The rough texture gives the work more physicality, contrasting the virtual aspect of the pieces.
