Dike Blair often works with oil and gouache to craft his photorealistic paintings. Drawn from his own photographs, Blair’s artworks point towards his attention to the ordinary and mundane with a voice that is both romantic and ironic. Frequently leaving his works untitled, Blair has painted deadpan and vacant still lifes of cocktails, ashtrays, cups of coffee, and magazines.
The settings of these still lifes are normally transitory environments, such as motels, restaurants, lounges, and lobbies. Often featuring solitary objects, Blair’s work implies a sense of loneliness and melancholy akin to the work of Edward Hopper.
In these works, Blair plays with light and depth. Many of his scenes are either lit by an artificial flash or through sunlight from a window. Aside from table settings and everyday objects and beverages, Blair has also painted detailed depictions of doors, edges of frames, windowsills, and reflective surfaces, pointing towards the effect of light on these facades and borders.
While simple and understated, the minute details in his paintings such as carpet patterns, table marbling, and brands tell the story of the American vernacular and common lived experiences.
Sculpture
Parallel to his photorealistic painting practice, Blair has also constructed sculptures by manipulating carpet, crates, and wires. These sculptures often house the paintings he has created, which he arranges along with his installation very deliberately. Blair’s sculptural work is often compared to ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement that puts emphasis on harmony in simplicity.
(IN) in (2008) features a lit Noguchi lamp facing a standing crate with a painting of eyes on its reverse. These works of his evoke an attention to light, storage, and human intervention.
