Since I don’t really like writing Artist Statements, I asked my friend and fellow painter Kurt Dahlke to just ask me some random questions that I could answer that would suffice.
KD: Do you consider yourself an artist and why? What are the criteria?
DPT: Yes, I suppose, although I prefer the term ‘painter’. Artist is too general. Everyone is an artist. If you create anything – a scrapbook, beef bourguignon, an impressive spreadsheet – you get labeled “artist”. It seems to just mean anyone who has a knack for something.
KD: What are you trying to communicate with your work?
DPT: I love the subject of communication in art. I contend that all art is either communicative or decorative; that it was created to either convey a message or create visual stimulation. I don’t think that all art communicates, and in fact I put some of the greatest painters (Matisse for one) in the decorative camp. To answer the question, I am not communicating anything. Nature is my subject and my interest, and my motive is to translate the beauty and mystery of nature through paint. The work is meant to engage you visually, and not to communicate a message.
KD: What’s more important in your work, discipline or inspiration, and why?
DPT: Excellent question! If I have to pick one it will be discipline. I’m actually at a time when I’m trying to get better at this, and move away from an inspiration-centric practice. I think it’s important to force myself to make marks even if the inspiration isn’t there. I have to allow myself the freedom to make bad paintings. The inspiration will come one way or the other, but I can’t sit around and wait for it. I have to create an environment for it to manifest itself.
KD: Have you settled on a medium or will you explore others with the aim of exhibiting them?
DPT: I have been happy with acrylic paints for a while now. In the last couple of years I have been incorporating spray paint as well. I like these media because they travel well, dry quickly, and clean up easy; things that help when painting outdoors. The idea of creating three dimensional pieces has been floating around in my head lately. Trees are a major element of my paintings, and I have been thinking about how my interpretation of trees would look as sculpture; maybe painted sculpture. Ultimately however I think of myself as a painter and if I explore other media it will be to inform my painting in some way.
KD: Is there an end-point to creativity?
DPT: I don’t think so. I’ve never thought about this before, but consider Matisse or Picasso; artists who lived into old age and remained creative to the very end, and it’s not like they had limited output. They were prolific. Creativity is about being curious, which is a renewable resource!
KD: Boxers or briefs?
DPT: Boxers.