David MacDowell (1)

David Macdowell’s style cannot be better described by his own artist’s statement: “Dave Paints Acrylic on Canvas in the Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism movement. His focus is on Childhood Fantasy and our Contemporary Cultural Nightmare.” With the work “Parents Just Don’t Understand” David has used the acrylic medium to show both with the inclusion of pop culture references and our “Contemporary Cultural Nightmare.” The painting shows Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” movie (the pose of the characters and the scene is from the movie as well.) reading a rather “inappropriate” children’s book (with the image of the classic children’s show icon, Howdy Doody) to possessed child, Regan, from the Exorcist movie. While Atticus is thinking of Mickey Mouse and Disney’s values, the child is thinking of no one other than Charles Manson.
The use of a somewhat muted purple background helps to outline that characters and the foreground more, but that isn’t to say the background isn’t important- the inclusion of the mysterious shadows on the windows. Macdowell actually was trying to make this picture a nighttime scene but due to lack of the knowledge to so do. “Its blues and cool purples because I didn’t know how to make it look like a night time scene-and then I figure just make the fore ground action all warm browns and pinks etc.” He compensated by making the purple cool background and the rather warm (excluding Regan) foreground. It’s the use of such colors that portray his knowledge of design, and his overall composition only emphasizes this.