Through sculpture, installation, and painting, Dallas area artists Land. and Perkins use the gallery space as their “playground” to explore relationships between we humans and the world around us.
Doug Land’s art practice unpacks the uncomfortable exploration of melancholy experiences through the lens of gardening. “For me, the act of gardening is a devotional challenge, forcing me to confront notions of beauty, wealth, class, even death. Using the garden as my muse, allows me to present the bitter truths of my introspections in pleasant, but ultimately ruining forms. Building site-specific installations, both indoors and outdoors, I highlight our strange sense of societalvalues tied to our codependent relationship with Nature.” For Playground, Land. uses forest limbs, dowels, bark, lichen, beetles, earwigs, and moss to create a unique installation that explores these ideas.
Through his satirical paintings, Kevin Perkins challenges us to rethink binary ways of thinking. Comic book style characters are reframed as Hellenistic figures whose comedic struggle and passion dissolve the boundaries of dualistic ideologies into a more transcendent space. The inherent violence associated with the quarreling nemeses of modern comics and the visceral nature of Hellenistic art has been replaced with a more playful narrative that allows viewers to ponder the highly dualistic characters who are a staple of our modern mythic archetypes.
Doug Land. was raised in the woods south of Dallas. He received a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design, and is currently working on his MFA at Texas Christian University. Gardening was once a youthful pastime spent with his grandmother, but as greenspaces have become more rare, Land. felt a strong need to cultivate art in conversation with the outdoor experience. Working with living plants, natural materials, and sustainable practices, Land shares his experiences with nature so that other people may develop their own practice, urban farm, or tranquil reflective spaces.
Kevin Perkins is a Louisiana native living and working in Dallas, Texas. A graduate of Louisiana Tech University School of Art, Kevin holds a BFA in graphic design and is a self-taught artist working in painting and sculpture. Along with his art practice, Kevin has been a secondary art educator for nearly 10 years.
Visit www.udallas.edu/gallery for more information.
About the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery
The Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery is located in the Art History Building at the corner of Gorman Drive and Novinski Circle on the University of Dallas campus at 1845 E. Northgate Drive in Irving. The gallery, which is part of the university's Haggerty Art Village, is free and open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 5 p.m. For more gallery information or for current COVID policies and procedures visit: udallas.edu/gallery or call 972-721-5087.
About the University of Dallas
The University of Dallas, located in a metropolitan area of nearly 7 million people, is a leading Catholic university widely recognized for academic excellence by well-known publications, organizations, and accrediting bodies. It offers distinctive undergraduate and graduate programs in the liberal arts, business, and ministry that are characterized by academic rigor, an exceptional faculty, and a commitment to shaping principled leaders in the Catholic intellectual tradition. For more information, visit udallas.edu
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