b. 1983, Fontana, CA, US
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US
Dashiell Manley’s practice is characterized by focused, iterative, and time-intensive processes. His application of oil paint with a palette knife—a technique that began as simply a studio exercise—now dominates his singular approach to painting abstract, psychological landscapes. This experiment gave way to works that resemble a panoply of impressions, from foliage, seashells, and dirty rutted roads, to slashing, almost aggressive, cuts.
His recent paintings develop themes first explored in his Elegy series, wherein he built up canvases with repetitive, meditative, and labor-intensive strokes as a way to materialize a sense of calm in the face of the chaotic frenzy of the news cycle. Such a technique seemed a necessary counterpart to his New York Times and Various Sources series, in which he represented the barrage of information presented by newspapers and political cartoons. His recent work is largely made with a similar eye for abstraction and feeling but is held up by different theoretical buttressing. Whereas his earlier paintings were responses to the endless crises presented by daily news, his new works are more concerned with finding a physical expression of and shape to his interiority. There are two types of transformations at play across these works: the first formal, as it relates to the finished surface of a painting; and the second biographical, as it relates to the stories the artist tells himself to inspire the works.
Dashiell Manley (b. 1983, Fontana, CA, US; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US) received his BFA from Cal Arts and his MFA from UCLA. Manley’s work has been included in exhibitions at renowned institutions across the United States, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and the 2012 Hammer Biennial. His work is part of the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Hammer Museum, The Palm Springs Art Museum, and The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College.