David Bailin

Gallery Affiliations: Koplin Del Rio

Region: South

I grew up on the prairies of South Dakota. The land there does not start or end but expands across miles of rolling plains and under the vast expanse of sky.

With the great absurdity of everyday life taking place within these extraordinary distances, the people have adjusted to the prairies. This is reflected in their humor--dry, deadpan, self-deprecating and their manner--stoic, flat, and fixed in the present.

My work is similar. Drawn in charcoal on paper, the narratives have no beginning or end, just the great expanse of present in which the characters, silent and static, are suspended. The work is not about the particular scenes but the attempt to hold on to or find oneís place in a stark and inhospitable environment.

Recently, I have started to draw interiors. The same sense of dislocation is evident in this work. The characters, ìcontrollingî their office environment by arranging, rearranging and discovering things, never seem to feel at ease. Ultimately, the characterís triumph remains not just in the resoluteness of the effort but also in the humor of his effort.