@ Riverside Art Museum

April 2 – May 30, 2009

Reception: April 25, 2009, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Originally hailing from the North of Italy, John Dingler finds his inspiration on the streets of Riverside, California.  As a graduate of the University of Maryland and UC Irvine, Dingler utilizes his knowledge of art history to create one-of-a-kind hand-created digital artwork, often displayed as shaped canvases. Influenced by sources as diverse as Gothic architecture, Renaissance frescos, and 1960s artists like Frank Stella, Dingler combines classic concepts with contemporary technique. This curious blend of the ordinary and extraordinary yields remarkably unique works of art. Beginning with photographic images of buildings, nature, television, and politics, Dingler utilizes digital technology to then compose thought-provoking assemblages. Dingler’s work draws in audience members with its sometimes graphic mixture of imagery, color, and content.

For this exhibition, Dingler is featuring images from his Odd Shaped Canvases series. These works often begin as sketches, usually small, developed enough to record an idea, then re-manipulated. Some of the visual elements include: a progressive deconstruction of Vermeer’s Geographer; a photograph of the studio floor; a plastic Ionic columns taken from a birthday cake; an acrylic painting of a woman; the black hand, a photo of an artist’s arm. The remaining 2 images on display are states of a process of progressive deconstruction of this original shaped canvas.