My New Artist Statement | Michael Dingler

I'm a pluralist when it comes to the nature of our government; I'm a deist when it comes to matters of faith; I'm a loyalist when it comes to matters of family; I view the world with an existential bias, I question every mindset, I think that when there's something to be shared with someone, I'm at my best. I like the color purple.

Home is New Orleans. I've traveled the world and two of the seven seas (though there's arguably five), been to fifteen countries and twenty-six states. I've yet to go to Africa, Asia or Australia, but they are all on a mental to-do list. I'd like to smuggle medicine to refugee camps in Africa. I'd like to hike a portion of the Great Wall of China. I'd like to go to the outback of Australia. In the interim I want to go to the Grand Canyon. I've only recently gotten as far as Santa Fe. I've lived in Nicaragua. Every time I say or write Nicaragua, I hear the song of Nicaragua Nicaraguita in my head. I am not a communist. I've traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Trinidad and the Dominican Republic. I've traveled to England and Ireland, but I only spoke English there.

I like to view the world with gentle eyes, but the world won't always allow it. I dislike the way the national media portrays the stories they report. I believe in balance. I rarely see balance in existence...balance in action. I think art should speak for itself. I think there are enough words is the world that I shouldn’t have to use more of them to tell someone what they are seeing for themselves.

I have no faith in the traditional usage of the word. I can accept that and view it as such: That when I think of the regenerative aspects of faith I see it in colors. I have faith in the color in which I see that day and I will hold on to what it means for me then. A faint scraping of blue painted sixty years ago on the side of a building is enough to set me on a course that can sometimes last weeks. I don’t understand much about faith when it comes to God or His churches because I can’t say that I’ll let myself believe in something omnipotent outside of me. However, I do believe that the kingdom of god is within each and every one of us, separately and uniquely.

I can believe in a color because I can see it; when in food, I can taste it; when spackled across a canvas I can touch it. Color is in all things, thus I can better associate what living is through the embodiment of that spectrum. In all rudiments, that is what I break down into as a core belief…faith in color. That, to me, is what it is to be an artist, believing in the healing power of color.

I paint. I write. I draw. I dream. I take pictures. I've caught sunshine rainbows radiating godliness from behind torpid clouds. They've made me smile.

The world is a finite place filled with finite resources. All I want for is to have a room in a city that allows me to have wine any time of the day, money enough for paint and food, and to be left alone by the bothers of the world until I want to venture out an see it on my own accord. Nearly all other aspects of life to me is interruption on what it is I feel meant to do…and that is to paint.

Have I mentioned I like the color purple?