Chad Dawkins

Artist Statement

I make artwork with a tone of critical judgement towards art making. I write about artwork with a tone of critical judgement towards the elements of art production and reception. I keep a critical stance towards the players surrounding art’s production. I use language and images to understand why art is produced and how it is propagated.

Untitled #149-168 comes from a collection of 19th century engravings. Engravings of drawings of microscopic images of plant cells of different tree species. This collection of botanical engravings came from a print dealer I used to work for. Seeing as how black and white line drawings of plant cells were not “pretty” enough to sell to designers (unlike hand colored palm leaves or seashells), he gave them to me. I’ve always liked making artwork that copies already existing copies. Rather, I like generational degradation. Every time a copy is made, no matter how precise, information is lost or changed. So taking these scientific images that were probably faithful copies of what was seen microscopically in wood cells and trying to faithfully reproduce them to make something more attractive than the original prints without any creative flourish. They are handmade reproductions of mechanical reproductions of handmade reproductions of something viewed scientifically, and inevitably they are different.

• Issue 23, "What Is A Curator?"