Dan Attoe makes meticulous oil paintings depicting natural wonders — waterfalls, beaches, mountains, evergreens — these sites are populated by tiny figures spouting even tinier diaristic missives, hand-painted in silver and culled from the artist's stream of consciousness. The miniature humans disrupt the grandeur of nature as their depictions and utterances pull the viewer from the beauty of the landscape. Says Attoe, “The landscape can be enjoyed for its beauty, and the disparity between it and the figures, but it also exists in service to these contemporary people in funny or ordinary clothing saying everyday things about e-mails or engaging in interpersonal clumsiness.” His fragmented and compartmentalized drawings feature a small graphite landscape scene at the center with loosely connected embellishments rippling outward. John Motley discussed Attoe’s drawings in The Portland Oregonian in 2014:

Attoe's sketches are fragmented and compartmentalized. Each features a small graphite drawing at the center with loosely connected embellishments rippling outward. … multiple drawing styles reinforce the varying perspectives on youth and childhood, from pure, storybook fantasy to a less-innocent complexity, where fear and sexuality mingle.

Dan Attoe’s most recent solo shows were Recent Landscapes at Half Gallery in New York, reviewed in Artinfo; Landscapes with Water, at Peres Projects in Berlin, reviewed in Frieze Magazine; and Dan Attoe at 1430 Contemporary in Portland, reviewed inArt in America. He has been in numerous group shows in galleries and museum in the US and Europe. He worked with and was part of the inspiration for a line of clothing by fashion designer Adam Kimmel in 2011. Dan is also one of the founders of Paintallica, an artist collective that has presented performative installations across the country, as well as Barneys New York and the Iowa State Fair. Dan Attoe’s work has been written about and featured in Artforum, The Los Angeles Times, Art Review, The Journal, Flash Art, Berlin Art Journal, PAPERMAG and The New York Times. Born in 1975 in Bremerton, Washington, Attoe grew up in parts of Washington, Idaho, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and now lives and works in Washougal, Washington. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin in 1998 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 2004.