Connor
Dolan
Statement
I’ve read hundreds of pages of federal regulatory code to find a way to legally buy yellowcake uranium. Several of my paintings have been (unjustly) incinerated by an EPA hazmat team, and I have a little bit of nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project embedded in my palm.
With an almost neurotic curiosity about the world, fact-finding and Wikipedia click holes entertain me as much as anything. Consequentially, my artwork often centers on a captivating figure I’ve stumbled across and expands outward to incorporate more complicated materials and sometimes misunderstood subject matter that lies beyond everyday familiarity. Things like radiation, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, germs, GMOs, and even narcotics are all fascinating and unnerving. While often considered outright dangerous, I present these technologies as complex tools—able to accomplish both evil and good.
Elegant and striking visuals in my work function as an icebreaker for deeper engagement with these topics. I utilize sleek, modern, and minimal materials, often employing repetition and symmetry in my hybridized works in addition to strategic flashes of supersaturation.
Biography
Connor Dolan is an artist born in Miami, Florida and currently resides in Missouri after receiving a degree in Painting at Washington University in St. Louis. His creations are scientific and research heavy, but aesthetic forward and driven by deep curiosity about the natural and mechanical world. Connor works with dangerous and hard-to-obtain materials, leading him to communicate with the EPA, OSHA, and the National Radiation Commission as well as a network of overseas suppliers to obtain items that are often highly regulated (but not illegal). His work has been shown at galleries in St. Louis, Kansas City, South Florida, and Los Angeles. Connor’s work has been featured by Dazed Korea and Sculpture Magazine among other publications. Three Cubic Feet of Stone, Blood, and Meat—the artist’s first solo show—opened at Monaco Gallery in St. Louis in September 2022.