The artist opens a portal through which a viewer can observe the artist’s perspective of the world. The history of the discipline of mark making offers a multitude of perspectives from which all artists and cultural makers can sample. Marks made without the hand illuminate processes in the world that give rise to actions. These processes become a surrogate for the hand and offer artists a new context for mark making. The Drawing and Painting Area fosters an environment of exploration and promotes a variety of approaches to art making, ranging from traditional media, such as oil paint on canvas, to experimental tactics that challenge the idea of tradition and blur boundaries between media. Moreover, the Drawing and Painting Area approaches material and conceptual explorations as inextricable and encourages students to carefully consider the implications of their decisions when making art.
Area Faculty
Michael Dixon
MFA, Painting & Drawing, 2005
Artist Website
I received two bits of advice when I was considering graduate school. The first was to pick a place where there was someone you wanted to work with teaching in the program, and the second was to pick a place that you felt like you could live in for two or three years. CU Boulder fit the second criteria for me.
My graduate school experiences pushed me and stretched me. There was lots of joy and lots of disappointment. I think the people I continue to stay in contact with made my time in Boulder priceless. I want to mention Kay Miller who was the chair of my graduate committee. She is the reason I ended up attending CU Boulder, and she continues to be a positive force in my life today. Overall, the years I spent in graduate school were some of my best years of my life.
I am currently working on a new body of work called "Picaninny 1976." My mother is white and my biological father is black. I make work about race and identity that primarily focuses on exploring this "in between" space. My mother's parents grew up in Mississippi and when my grandfather first met me he said, "Where is that little picaninny?" I am painting images of myself as a child and inserting crocodile/alligator imagery. The pairing of black children and alligators is common within racist memorabilia in the United States. These images were ubiquitous around America but especially around the gulf states. I am interested in the word picaninny; its historical context; this particular personal narrative within my family; and the implications of violence or erasure of black bodies within this imagery.