WARREN DYKEMAN
Warren Dykeman grew up in the desert of eastern Washington in Kennewick, just outside the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Having lived under the shadow of America’s atomic ambitions, Warrens work is informed by the Cold War era Americana that surrounded him in those formative years. His paintings and drawings draw upon elements of folk art, handmade sign lettering, digital art, and collage. Utilizing a variety of materials, with a nod to the past, Warren embraces the new technology of the digital age combining his experience as a Designer to create compositions that use vector graphics as a jump off for his unique take on primitive folk art styles.
Warren received a BFA from Western Washington University and studied painting under Ed Bereal of the Los Angeles Cool School.
Statement
There’s a diverse range of the subject matter in my work. Sometimes non-objective shapes, organic forms, design and architectural elements fill much of my work, but I see myself as a figurative painter. I am interested in the form and contour of the figure and reworking the line, pushing the bounds of what is shape and what is icon. I erase and add to the edges of the form as a designer would adjust a typeface or geometric object. I sometimes use the computer as a gathering place for composing many individual forms into compositions that can be used as studies or directly projected onto the surface, however my work is definitely about the hand and the seeing the scar a pencil makes or the texture of paint leaves behind from brush or rag.
Warren Dykeman grew up in the desert of eastern Washington in Kennewick, just outside the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Having lived under the shadow of America’s atomic ambitions, Warrens work is informed by the Cold War era Americana that surrounded him in those formative years. His paintings and drawings draw upon elements of folk art, handmade sign lettering, digital art, and collage. Utilizing a variety of materials, with a nod to the past, Warren embraces the new technology of the digital age combining his experience as a Designer to create compositions that use vector graphics as a jump off for his unique take on primitive folk art styles.
Warren received a BFA from Western Washington University and studied painting under Ed Bereal of the Los Angeles Cool School.
Statement
There’s a diverse range of the subject matter in my work. Sometimes non-objective shapes, organic forms, design and architectural elements fill much of my work, but I see myself as a figurative painter. I am interested in the form and contour of the figure and reworking the line, pushing the bounds of what is shape and what is icon. I erase and add to the edges of the form as a designer would adjust a typeface or geometric object. I sometimes use the computer as a gathering place for composing many individual forms into compositions that can be used as studies or directly projected onto the surface, however my work is definitely about the hand and the seeing the scar a pencil makes or the texture of paint leaves behind from brush or rag.
