10 Jul Organizing the Chaos…paintings by Don Dickinson

Watercolors explore chaotic nature of urban landscape

Like looking at a reflection in a broken mirror, Don Dickinson’s watercolors explore urban landscapes through a distorted perspective. Ripple River Gallery near Bay Lake will feature Dickinson’s paintings July 11 through August 12.

Don Dickinson, who lives and works in St. Paul, explained, “These pieces are an exploration of urban landscapes and the energy they create. I’m interested in how that energy is visualized. Cities can be chaotic experiences and the challenge is to produce an equivalent feeling. Fracturing the subject matter creates the visual energy and also adds the necessary chaos.”

Dickinson said that one of the problems of functioning in an urban environment is organizing the chaos. “One of the ways to do that in the real world is to use grids, either on street maps or even in the actual organization of streets in the initial urban plan.  I use grids in these paintings as a nod in that direction.”  Artistically the grid provides a contrast with the underlying asymmetrical chaos of the fractured subject matter. 

In choosing his subject matter Dickinson attempts to avoid static “pretty” compositions in favor of more diagonals and oblique composition. As a result his paintings move more in the direction of a raw street photography approach. He likens his paintings to the work of street photographer Gary Winogrand.

Dickinson, who studied architecture at the University of Oregon and photography at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, holds a BFA in drawing, painting and printmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Following a 12-year career in photography in Los Angeles, he taught drawing, painting, photography and computer graphics in the Chicago area for 14 years.

Dickinson’s work has been seen in various national shows and can be found in numerous private collections. His work has been included in the Minnesota State Fair Fine Art Show, was featured in the most recent St. Paul Art Crawl and was awarded runner-up Best of Show in the Arts in Harmony show at the Hopkins Center for the Arts and the American Swedish Institute.