Dotty Attie
Since the 1970s, Dotty Attie’s multi-panel compositions have explored gender identity, politics, and culture through the re-imaging of well-known paintings and photography. She re-presents images from vintage photographs, movie stills, and contemporary photographs on square canvases meticulously painted in her signature palette of black, white, and grey with touches of flesh and rouge. Interspersed with panels of text, Attie’s works suggest an alternate reality to the constructed version we are so accustomed to through television and film.
For example, in her 2013 The Lone Ranger series Attie turned her attention to the actions of an iconic American hero in an attempt to unmask the legend. Lined up horizontally on the wall, these sequences of canvases create sentence-like structures reminiscent of scenes from a film. Each one portrays an image pertaining to The Lone Ranger and our expectations of his success. Masked Men features portraits of a series of male figures–including baseball catchers, hockey players, batman, soldiers, and deep sea divers–all wear an appropriate mask. The accompanying text tiles reveal: “Many tried to emulate the masked man’s success, but few were able to capture the public imagination.” Looking at the viewer, these masked men appear both ominous and ridiculous.
Attie was a …
Since the 1970s, Dotty Attie’s multi-panel compositions have explored gender identity, politics, and culture through the re-imaging of well-known paintings and photography. She re-presents images from vintage photographs, movie stills, and contemporary photographs on square canvases meticulously painted in her signature palette of black, white, and grey with touches of flesh and rouge. Interspersed with panels of text, Attie’s works suggest an alternate reality to the constructed version we are so accustomed to through television and film.
For example, in her 2013 The Lone Ranger series Attie turned her attention to the actions of an iconic American hero in an attempt to unmask the legend. Lined up horizontally on the wall, these sequences of canvases create sentence-like structures reminiscent of scenes from a film. Each one portrays an image pertaining to The Lone Ranger and our expectations of his success. Masked Men features portraits of a series of male figures–including baseball catchers, hockey players, batman, soldiers, and deep sea divers–all wear an appropriate mask. The accompanying text tiles reveal: “Many tried to emulate the masked man’s success, but few were able to capture the public imagination.” Looking at the viewer, these masked men appear both ominous and ridiculous.
Attie was a founding member of A.I.R Gallery, which opened in 1972 as one of the first artist-run galleries for women in the U.S. She has had solo exhibitions at venues such as the New Museum in New York, Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum, and Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill. Her paintings have also been featured in group exhibitions at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among other institutions. She has received a Creative Artists Public Service grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts grants.
Courtesy of P.P.O.W.
