CHAD DAWKINS

Friday, June 1st, 2007 - 6:00-9:00 PM
Art Depot Annex - 1703 Texas Avenue

Equivocation 

1. the situation must be Yes-and-no not either-or.   
avoid a polar situation.

2. they resolve nothing.   
they place us in the ambiguous world of the intermediate.

3. whence the various modalities of authenticity. _______________________________________________________

4. the ability to cope with the temporary

5. each one will give you even if not a complete illusion 
at least an aspect of nature that pretends to be true.

you will see in each picture what you want to see. _______________________________________________________

6. Quests end in failure. one answer undoes another.
Trust absence.  Only fragments are accurate.

a) a rather sweet melancholy, a passive kind of rumination

b) belonging to the same reality that breathing & thumbprints belong to

c) we all shrink from the full meridian light of truth
_______________________________________________________

7. But all symbolism harbors the curse of mediacy;  it is bound to obscure what it seeks to reveal. ______________________________________________________

both are impure situations, and I prefer neither

- - - Chad Dawkins
 

       Dawkins work supplies the viewer with fragments of imagery and ideas that the viewer can attempt to construct into meaning. "Equivocation is the basis here,” Dawkins says, “and these works act as red herrings, half-truths, or truths enveloped in fiction to a level of novelty.” Dawkins contends that, “These works are an investigation into one's ability to not say exactly one means." The questions posited by the paintings on initial viewing quickly lead to truncated truths, each one more interesting and complex than any attempt to clearly delineate a specific truth, and in doing so each painting develops a complex version of honesty through contradiction.   

5/10/2007

-- Jonathan Whitfill
5/14/07

art depot