Featured Artist at Bayou City Art Festival

This month, Dolan is honored to be the 2011 Featured Artist for the Bayou City Art Festival in Memorial Park, Houston. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of the festival, which according to Dolan, is “like getting a hot fudge sundae with two cherries on top!” As 2011 Featured Artist, Dolan created two artworks inspired by the State of Texas and its wildlife, making this the first time the Bayou City Art Festival will highlight two featured artworks. One of the artworks was used to create the Bayou City Art Festival promotional poster. Read the full interview with Dolan here regarding his selection as 2011 Featured Artist.

Field and Bayou – See this work in progress in the studio.

Story of the artwork from Dolan:
Anyone who has ever travelled with me knows I’m difficult. I don’t like to go where I’m told. I don’t like to follow the map. I don’t like to go where others have gone. I like to explore. And so the first time I came to Texas, I wanted to explore. Lucky for me, Texas provides over 250,000 square miles of explorable territory. After driving around aimlessly for days, I settled on the Houston area as my main focus. I dredged through bayous, skipped down pine paths (yes, I do still skip) and I watched in wonder as birds with long coattails dipped to pick insects on the wind. I was captivated by these birds, not only because they were new to me, but because their crimson shoulders sparked like the epaulettes of some revolutionary soldier while contrasting with the subtle black and grey of their wings. I watched these birds for days while they chuckled and dipped in the air and introduced me to the rest of the Houston environment. I followed them into grassy cow pastures beside cattle egret and further down into the bayous, where they snipped at dragonflies on lily pads and took their rest on green ash trees. I met most of Houston’s wilder side thanks to the unexcelled aerobatics of the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and so I decided that there was no better animal to grace the cover of my wooden canvas this spring.

My Texas Map – See this work in progress in the studio.

Story of the artwork from Dolan:
Texas isn’t just a huge state. Anyone who has travelled the length and breadth of the area knows this. Whether dusting your boots in the chaparral or wading through the bayous, Texas is an encyclopedia of scenery and personality. And so when I set out to create the first of two pieces symbolizing the grandeur of this state, I thought first of the postcards I had seen as a kid. I remember my grandmother showing me postcards she had received from friends visiting Texas. And I remember the plethora of colors and the excitement I had in thinking about the pioneers and cowgirls and strange birds and long-horned cattle. So I decided to create a collage that spoke of all of these brilliantly colored experiences of this great region. Each small collage square holds a bold color or image that represents little bits of Texas. Whether it’s the flash of a billboard through the windshield at night while driving down a long dustbowl highway or the stampede of a hundred head of cattle through a river gorge, this collage attempts to pull together all that makes Texas great and makes it much more than just a state.

To pre-order print versions of either work, check the Etsy shop. Follow along with new and available works headed to the show via Flickr and Facebook.

The Bayou City Art Festival is an award-winning outdoor art gallery complemented by restaurants, wine cafes and on-going, multicultural music and dance performances.
Bayou City Art Festival
Memorial Park, Houston, TX
March 25-27, 2010
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.