Animal Nature / Human Nature: Drawings by Matt Loeser and Douglas Miller
on view December 5, 2008 - January 4, 2009.
Essentially, these are drawings of dogs and dog toys, but they are not necessarily about what they are of.
Matt Loeser has here drawn extremely realistic, chewed-up dog toys, but in his artist statement he doesn’t talk about his dog or even much about the expired dog toys themselves. He talks about the reasons behind making these drawings, and it has something to do with dealing with his own human nature. Matt recognizes that he himself has gone through the process of being domesticized. No longer a free-roaming college student, he now has responsibilities. We live inside a social climate that idolizes pro-longed youth and displaces responsible living as something for “old people.” As one approaches the responsibilities of a serious job, a mortgage, a spouse, and taking care of a dog, the resulting feeling can be a sense of lost youth. These artworks try to come to terms with this fact in the artist’s life. Matt says that drawing helps him “to identify with the experiences of conventional day-to-day living.”
So, the chewed up dog toys are a metaphor for this new inclusion to social maturity. At the same time though, they retain an acknowledgment of that part of himself which is not completely domesticated. These dog toys are not presented in an idealized fashion – clean and whole. Instead, the domesticated dog has chewed them to pieces, showing that the dog still has a wild streak, ready to hunt. I believe Matt has chosen these used dog toys to represent his own domesticity, because he appreciates the way they reveal both realities, the domestic and the wild.
We could read Douglas Miller’s drawings through a similar lens of animal and human domesticity, but I think his drawings are functioning towards a different purpose. His artist statement tells us that these dogs are specifically drawn from photos of dogs in animal shelters. These drawings are slightly more literally about the lives of dogs, but they imply humanity. They implicate humans as the responsible or irresponsible caretakers of dogs. Domestic dogs require human care in breeding, feeding, grooming, providing shelter. These drawings are all representations of dogs that have ended up in shelters, mostly due to neglect and a lack of care from humans. Douglas points out that “our culture has both a profound emotional attachment and a disposable attitude of detachment to dogs.” What is it about human nature that allows us to love something so much and also to neglect it?
- Michael Winters, Gallery Director
ARTIST STATEMENT BY MATT LOESER
My artwork acts as a meditation on the methods I use to manage incidents in an ever-expanding personal history. It helps me to identify with the experiences of conventional day-to-day living. As with all my work, these drawings serve as a bridge between my collected self and the ways I deal with discovering my own moral fiber. Specifically, these images represent a stage in this personal identification.
I have selected a variety of expired dog toys as the subject. The ropes and stuffed animals are meant to metaphorically address elements of domestication and social maturity. They stand to represent the things we hold most dear; the things that take precedence over all else. Because they reflect an examination
and analysis of my character the inanimate objects are drawn in an empty field as a way to emphasize their iconographical nature. They are rendered with specific detail in a representational manner in order to make them instantly definable. It is my intent to hold the viewers attention on what has become a specimen of sorts, and not on my process or materials. These features lend the work to more of a scientific study than an expression of ideal.
In a literal sense I am drawing. Layering graphite marks on paper to emphasize light, form and texture. Drawing is a direct approach to making art; it is vital to my work that this directness reflects an open and honest interpretation of my being. Traces of gesture are directly recorded with a dry material and linger unmoving, unchanging if not physically manipulated. All marks and tone are results of an action and remain in the context of their production. At the end of this production, what stands is evidence, clues to my activity - the very weight of my arm, identifying stains from unique fingerprints, temperament, patience.
ARTIST STATEMENT BY DOUGLAS MILLER
The images of these dogs were taken from various animal shelters around the world. They are the lost, unwanted, and anonymous. Dogs have a noble and likewise tragic history with human beings. Our culture has both a profound emotional attachment and a disposable attitude of detachment to dogs.
I make images that at any moment could fall apart. I am interested in the frail and threadbare line that lies between implication and the explicit. I work in the same way that an author revises text, constructs sentences, deconstructs sentences, edits words, and rubs out ideas. An author is fortunate to have only black words on white paper and nothing more. We don’t see the skeleton of the author’s work - we see the altered, fleshy body. The reader is not permitted to peak behind the curtain and see the machinery that sputters and heaves – there are only black words on white paper. I am interested in allowing these remnants and bones to be unobstructed. The revision process that leads to the image is exposed, just as the strings that operate a marionette are sometimes glimpsed.
Matt and Douglas talk about Animal Nature / Human Nature on You Tube
