Vilma Gold

Dan Attoe

04 Jul 2005 – 04 Aug 2004

  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • . Dan Attoe
  • Vilma Gold is pleased to present the first London solo exhibition by Dan Attoe. Entitled You Get What You Deserve the exhibition will comprise of new paintings.

    In Dan Attoe’s work landscape plays a significant role and moreover the American landscape. Attoe seems to use landscape as a psychological backdrop that subtly reflects the actions of those who populate them. Minute individuals often appear lost inside gigantic rural stage sets whilst playing out recurring themes of sex, violence, death and religion. Through his paintings Attoe explores some of the tensions and anxieties that underlie American culture.

    From 1997 to 2004 Attoe undertook the task of starting and completing a single painting per day. These works were often small, around 15 cm square and meticulously detailed. This daily activity makes Attoe’s paintings appear like diary entries or newspaper reports. In a recent interview he goes as far as describing them as his ‘dailies’. Further compounding this sense of daily records Attoe fills the reverse of each painting with hand-written poems or stories centered on recent events in his personal life and the mass media. The painting entitled I Make Most of this Shit Up depicts a waterfall and pool where scantily clad figures, bathe, enjoy a picnic and perform gymnastics. On the reverse of the work Attoe writes “This is a great place even on a cloudy day. Based loosely on Snoqualmie Falls, Washington. Those are mostly Douglas fir trees. I think the people are related.” The exhibition will include 10 of these diary-like entries.

    You Get What You Deserve will also include three new larger paintings ranging in size from 100 to 150 cm square. Entitled ‘Accretions’ each of these works comprises a single large dominant image that forms a backdrop for smaller interspersed compositions. Where the ‘dailies’ appear as self-contained stories the ‘Accretions’ are a growing together or adherence of parts that would normally be separate. Here Attoe presents a complex juxtaposition of disparate events that break with linear narrative. In the ‘Accretion’ paintings Attoe seems to reverse the roles of foreground and background. Accretion 32 depicts a yellow American school bus traveling along a wintry forest road. Inside this larger image Attoe lays on top a series of smaller scenes that contribute to this simple scenario. High above the school bus and in the centre of the painting two birds rise up to the sky lifting in their beaks a painting or poster of a heavy metal band. At the bottom Attoe depicts a temporary rural monument to a teenage sensibility. A small alter-like mound is strewn at its base with graffiti, jewelry and trophies of youth.

    Dan Attoe lives and works in Washington State, USA. He has exhibited widely since graduating from the MFA program at University of Iowa in 2004. Recent solo shows have been held at Peres Projects, Los Angeles and 404 Arte Contemporaneous, Naples. His work has also featured in numerous groups shows including Sioux City Art Center, Iowa, John Connelly Presents, New York, Hiromi Yoshi Gallery, Tokyo and Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury. On the occasion of his exhibition at Sioux City Art Center a catalogued was published entitled Fictional Wonders / Real Hallucinations . Attoe’s work has also been recently featured in Art Forum, The New York Times and Paper.


    For further information or images please contact Martin Rasmussen: +44 (0)20 7729 9888 or: martin@vilmagold.com