Myles Dunigan

My whole life I have been fascinated by the intersection of reality and imagination. In my work, I strive to create a dialogue between myth and reality, something that seems to dwell in a time and space which is impossible yet convincing. The search for this ineffable quality is my primary focus, and I search out subjects that posses a mystical quality to me. Recently, I have been attracted to landscapes because of the interpretive potential that a purely spacial image has. I see landscape as the most direct transcription of experience into image, an amalgam of observational constructs and expressionistic abstraction. The images are dark, both literally and figuratively, yet in this ostensible bleakness I find a mysterious beauty hidden among the shadows.

Drawing is the crux of my work, my own hand and observations are vital to the life of an image. The process of trying to comprehend a subject's form and meaning through mark-making is necessary for me to be able to accurately recreate what I have observed. I view each work as a living being, and drawing as a measure of time and commitment to that life. My studies are made after objects and places I observe. These artifacts and gestures are assimilated into a collection of fragments, and in time will be reconfigured into new works. I may execute a drawing many different times, like tuning the strings of an instrument, in order to make it resonate within a new composition. Printmaking further extends the malleability of an drawing, for the copper plate can journey through nearly limitless states while producing prints as the evidence of this metamorphosis. I am fascinated by collecting these images, each with their own complex history, and using using them to compose something beyond what they originally were.

Myles Dunigan is a printmaker and visual artist from Spencer, Massachusetts. Much of his inspiration is drawn from the untamed wilderness of central Massachusetts as well as from the modern ruins of New England. Abandoned factories, decrepit farms, and forgotten houses are monuments to the passage of time, and an endless source of inspiration. Relics from museums and historical sites are collected in sketchbooks and subsequently woven into nebulous images where time and space endlessly fluctuate. He attended the Rhode Island School of design for his undergraduate degree, majoring in printmaking. He currently resides in Framingham, Massachusetts, and works in the art department at Wellesley College.