Julie 1997

Dado’s mixed media work, Julie, looks like a kid's drawing combined with some pretty sophisticated mark making. Can you imagine him in the studio, moving things around and letting rip? I really feel the energy of Dada’s hand in this piece. The pink and orange drips are pretty juicy. He’s splattering and dripping. There are floating images and forms, a little bit dreamlike, childlike even. He's combining collage with drawing, which creates its own logic. Look at those blocky buildings. It’s almost like he is building up a whole little world. There's a conversation that's taking place in the studio between the artist and the work. The artist makes a mark, then responds, then the painting speaks back, and the artist has another idea. And so, on and on, it goes. Like Cy Twombly or Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dado embraces a looseness that speaks to a freedom to experiment without constraint. Each of them pushing paint around to find something new. It's an ongoing dialogue.