Dan Bainbridge
Tampering with Western mythology, childhood fantasies, and our celebrity-obsessed popular culture, Dan Bainbridge creates mixed-media objects, installations, and assemblages. He uses found images and objects to create eerie mythological creatures. In Unicorn (2013), a glowing crystal is thrust into a pink stuffed horse, its tip sticking out garishly from its forehead. Glowing crystals also figure as teats of She Wolf Reading Light (2013), with its distinct reference to the mythical Roman beast.
Transgressing materiality in relation to a given subject has a long tradition in modern art. Dan Bainbridge builds on its genuine zeal without being scholarly. A bird could become a plant and end up as a person. A healthy dose of the grotesque and an almost solipsistic choice of subject matter push the issue of materiality and it's infinitely transformative potential to extreme. But the physical nature of the materials never takes a psychological back seat to the work’s subject. The tension between them is the true theme. The subversive characteristics of his works, as well as inventive use of toys, seem to offer a refreshing take on Paul McCarthy or Mike Kelly, with a lighter sense of irony.
In addition to his visual work, Bainbridge is also …
Tampering with Western mythology, childhood fantasies, and our celebrity-obsessed popular culture, Dan Bainbridge creates mixed-media objects, installations, and assemblages. He uses found images and objects to create eerie mythological creatures. In Unicorn (2013), a glowing crystal is thrust into a pink stuffed horse, its tip sticking out garishly from its forehead. Glowing crystals also figure as teats of She Wolf Reading Light (2013), with its distinct reference to the mythical Roman beast.
Transgressing materiality in relation to a given subject has a long tradition in modern art. Dan Bainbridge builds on its genuine zeal without being scholarly. A bird could become a plant and end up as a person. A healthy dose of the grotesque and an almost solipsistic choice of subject matter push the issue of materiality and it's infinitely transformative potential to extreme. But the physical nature of the materials never takes a psychological back seat to the work’s subject. The tension between them is the true theme. The subversive characteristics of his works, as well as inventive use of toys, seem to offer a refreshing take on Paul McCarthy or Mike Kelly, with a lighter sense of irony.
In addition to his visual work, Bainbridge is also active as a performance artist; he co-founded collectives Monkey Mop Boy and French Neon, an artist collective, a salon, and nomadic gallery. Bainbridge has been featured in many group shows in New York since he moved to the city in 2006.
Courtesy of Art 3 Gallery
