Visit The Exhibit

Dillon Beck fuses graphic design elements with traditional painting, following and breaking the rules of the former to create a unique visual vocabulary. Hard-edged, regulated forms like stairs and tunnels are rendered in shifting gradient colors, providing formal movement and cadence to otherwise ambiguous scenes.
 
In Beck’s newest series, Ekistics, roads and precisely placed houses play on the modernist grid. Elevations trick the eye and confound the viewer. In works like Bypass and Detour, linear roads suddenly diverge, revealing subterranean passages. Beck adds blue to his traditionally warm, sunrise and sunset-inspired palette, drawing attention to environmental and social concerns such as the current climate and housing crises through bold visual contrast.
 
Throughout, the artist poses questions: Is the sun rising or setting? Is the sprawl of homes calming or unsettling? Are the stairs traveling into the distance or back into the past? Ultimately, the answers lie in the viewer’s perception. Despite the absence of figures, Beck’s mysterious worlds evoke the presence of humankind, along with all its challenges and possibilities.