Dan Perkins
Volume: Where do you live / where do you work?
Dan Perkins: I live in Baltimore, and work primarily in Washington, DC. Mostly teaching Drawing/Foundation classes at a couple schools and doing occasional workshops at the National Gallery of Art.
Volume: Can you give a quick description of your work space?
Perkins: I maintain a studio at the School 33 Art Center in Baltimore. It’s an awesome space. Private, 2nd floor studio with north and west facing windows, nearly 13 foot ceilings(I measured one day this summer when I didn’t really know what to do with my paintings), and two large working walls, its roughly 500 square feet.
Volume: What's your day to day studio schedule like?
Perkins: It varies depending on my teaching schedule. Currently it’s not so bad. I teach night classes Monday-Thursday, so a couple days a week I’ll try to get up early put some time in before teaching. Prime studio days are Friday, Saturday, Sunday though.
Volume: What kind of work are you currently making?
Perkins: Currently, my paintings are exploring the interplay between image and geometry. In terms of subject matter, I’ve been interested in the history of landscape painting, particularly 19th century Romanticism for some time. Increasingly, I have been thinking about different representations of the transcendent or sublime experience that proliferate in contemporary culture. Often using those found images as sources to fracture, splice, and recombine with one another to make odd and pleasing new wholes.
Volume: Who's work have you been looking at lately?
Perkins: Sacha Braunig, Matthew F Fischer, Loie Hollowell, Matthew Craven, Tauba Auberbach.
Volume: What was the last show you saw in person that impacted your work?
Perkins: I just went up to New York in mid February and saw a lot of good stuff. Particularly liked the Flatlands show at the Whitney: functions as a survey of contemporary painting that addresses image. Now I know that sounds dry, but I really connected with the way that most artists in the show willfully and playfully embraced the ubiquitous nature of digital reproduction, while speaking to odd sense of malaise that often comes with its easiness and accessibility. I also really enjoyed Tauba Auberbach new work at Paula Cooper, especially her 3-D printed (cast?) visualizations of different patterns, thinking about their dimensionality perhaps through time.
Volume: What influences your practice outside of the studio?
Perkins: I have to admit I am a little bit of a NASA/ Sci-Fi / Pop Science nerd, you know poorly understood conceptions of quantum mechanics, and radical conceptions of the multiverse etc., etc.
Volume: Any upcoming projects or residencies in the near future?
Perkins: Gearing up for a two-person show with Alejandro Pintado at the Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, DC. Opens May 14th!
Artist Information:
Website: danperkinsart.com
IG: @danperkinsart