Commodity, marketing, advertising, and consumerism are givens in a media-centric world, where for better or worse, outlets for mass communications reign supreme. Engagement with and exposure to this world is determined by social, political, cultural, and economic factors, but essentially, the human experience is intrinsically linked to it on some level. PLASTIC TEETH shares Rad Dan aka Daniel R Watkins’ participation and views on this system, on a personal and professional scale. Working as a graphic designer positions him uniquely and sees Dan engaging with this world as a producer and consumer. Though informed by this background, Dan’s artistic practice exists separately and is pervaded by a lightness and playfulness of expression that isn’t weighed down by the task of providing commentary or critique. By incorporating these ideas, Rad Dan presents a body of work that draws upon the visual language of marketing, day to day imagery and popular cultural reference through his own, distinctive lens. In previous exhibitions, Dan has meditated upon similar themes that echo the idea that messaging is understood through imagery as much as it is through language and builds on this with his current show.
Working on his paintings in tandem allows Dan to constantly evolve his works as new inspiration from his lived experience arises. Built up and stripped back layers of paint make up the works in PLASTIC TEETH, and through shared palette, texture, and motif, create dynamic, yet synergetic dialogue within the space. Uniformly sized and hung, the large-scale works in portrait orientation mimic the effect of bill posters lining street corners and plywood facades. In this way, repetitive sizing anchors the viewer and provides legibility amidst the artist’s desire to overwhelm and overstimulate.
Paying close attention to composition yet allowing a freedom of movement and immediacy of application diverts attention from a focus on “reading” these paintings, to allowing the layers to meld together and form a glance into the artist’s world. The varied application of paint in these works, and the addition of areas of thickly applied impasto adds a new element to Dan’s practice that invites close inspection and provides more than a 2D encounter. The base layers of Dan’s paintings give nod to bold signage and silk-screen printing and are based on a series of stickers collected by the artist, advertising businesses and their available services. The painterly rendering of these letters and numbers allows this layer to act more closely to shapes and colours when obscured by overlaid motifs of local florals, textural areas of paint, airbrushed patterns, and cartoon-like characters. Whilst the overpainting of entire layers or parts of elements within the paintings may seem counterintuitive, it acts functionally to detract from the sell, sell, sell aspect of advertising and allow for an aesthetic appreciation of the visual language of advertising and design.
PLASTIC TEETH is a title that acts like a double-edged sword, oxymoronically suggesting that what you see may not be exactly what you get. It speaks to a Hollywood-esque experience, props, sets, people, that are made to look genuine on the surface but only serve to imitate real life. When describing his thoughts behind the title for his fourth exhibition at China Heights, Daniel R. Watkins, aka Rad Dan puts it this way “I feel like we’re constantly being sold fabricated things that really aren’t needed: PLASTIC TEETH. You’ve already got something that does the same thing, even better, and yeah something new can help, but it’ll always need a counter effect to bring you back to where you started.”
Words: Eva Balog