David MacDowell (2)

Macdowell’s works shove our societal flaws into our face with our own pop culture icons- each of his works is a pleasure to see and search for every pop culture innuendo no matter how small. One could spend hours finding all the faces and detail in some of his other works. An analytical point of his use of Disney characters in some of his works is that we perceive Disney to be rather innocent with the sweet cartoon characters and their do-good movies with happy endings. What Macdowell does is take that and shove it in our faces in a warped fashion each of his works showing the flaw with an aspect of society- whether family values, politics, or flaws in the celebrities themselves. The meaning behind this portrait was one that I viewed to be the idea of how the parent, no matter how twisted or corrupt the child is, will still think of her as “daddy’s little girl” and a sweet little angel that can’t do harm. Macdowell is most comfortable with his medium of acrylics on canvases, almost as if he has a fear of other mediums whether it is the success of using such mediums or the fear of his audience accepting such a change. It’s due to a lack of experience and knowledge in the digital medium that Macdowell’s works are all traditional, acrylic being his tool of the trade. Despite this his use of acrylic bring out an almost watercolor like feel to his faces but his props and backgrounds are detailed and realistic. Macdowell will put a twist on the reality with his works, whether it is with his use of vivid colors in others or the angle or the focus of his perspective. Macdowell is truly a model for this modern age of art that is still bound by the traditional medium’s allure and ways.

Check out more of David MacDowell's work at his website: http://www.macdowellstudio.com/

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.