Daniel Dove: Slab Citizen

The paintings begin in a very informal way. I brainstorm by making kind of cartoonish drawings in a sketchbook; I open myself up to anything that might have some kind of resonance. Sometimes that process includes going back through many folders of photographs that I have accumulated. Sometimes I just draw out of my head as a way of trying to come up with something that confirms its own right to exist.

What I mean when I talk about tactility, in it's most basic sense, is the presence of human touch on the surface of the painting. This also includes the illusion of what it would feel like to touch the subject matter that is depicted in the painting. So there is a dual thing that is happening at the base layer.

I am attracted to the idea of making paintings that feel painterly, but do not have obvious brushstrokes in them. The material conditions cannot be pulled apart, and the physicality of the medium hopefully remains relevant without the gestural energy embedded in a visible brushstroke.