You Should Have Seen The Other Guy

Powerful, playful and provocative, Michael Dowling’s upcoming exhibition at K Contemporary promises to ignite the spirit, excite the eye and challenge the mind. A recognized master of oil painting, Dowling has lately conceived a passion for simplicity, and guests to K Contemporary this May will be rewarded with the bold lines and aggressive forms of his newly conceived visions of American mythology drawn from the ghosts of antiquity. Dowling practices a self-developed style of art he terms “classically-based contemporary realism,” a serenely expressive approach that freely borrows from the Venetian school and always begins with thin black lines on a field of white. “Everything starts with a drawing,” he explains. “Each layer has an opportunity to step away from the picture or the natural image. I often start with imagery referencing art history and begin to adjust the content to give it voice in our current time. It may be quite raw when I’m done, or it may be very complete and layered. I let the painting tell me where it’s going.”