Spotlight Artist

David Bailin

South
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Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

As an artist who witnessed the waning of my father’s personhood through the dissolution of his memory, I wrestled with conveying the devastating personal and human experience of this loss without relying on visual clichés. The final image in my drawings is largely the result of the pentimenti that have moved the narrative along, without resolving it. Sometimes, the layers of earlier drawings overpower the last, like quicksand under a surface of marks and erasures.

These unresolved drawings were the visual and technical cues for the series Erasing. The frustration of trying to define what was unformed yet intimated by what appeared earlier—the backand- forth process of drawing in and erasing out, having an idea or image reveal itself one minute only to fall back into obscurity the next—mimicked what I saw happen to my father in his heroic effort to recognize in the present moment his own narrative. The work presented here is the result of my final collaboration with my father. As with his memories, only the ghosts are left.

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

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