about
DKWAN
B. 1988
DKWAN is an Artist based in San Francisco with multi-faceted disciplines in Cubism, Spontaneous Realism, Cityscapes, Contemporary Nature, and Street Art.
With over 16+ years in the visual arts, 2-decades in the underground dance street scene, and 11+ years of professional tech work in the Silicon Valley (Google [X] and other A.I. startups), he has brought together his artistic works under his brand name of 'DKWAN ARTS'.
Today, he is active in the San Francisco art scene and immersing himself with local artists, gallery owners, and opportunities to expand his art reach for the years to come.
process
After several sessions of sketching on grids, visualizing, and questioning... I then embark on the following:
Material collective – usually mixed mediums based on 'texture value', color alchemy values, and 'edge' - something different to excite the creation itself.
Mediums – I'll typically work with acrylics, sprays, charcoal, heavy ink, water, and an assortment of tools all while listening to 1-song on repeat for the entire art session.
1 song only explanation – I have found that having '1 song' on repeat helps me tap into my 'zone' of total art immersion in ways I can't perform without. Some of my best works come from obsessive and narrowly focused work conditions.
Color theory – my eyes are sensitive to color, so I take into great consideration of color 'temperature', 'value', 'tone', and 'theories' when creating and exploring my art subjects. With a 'loose' execution, done in the manner of psuedo-impressionism, I exploit the 'layering' technique of colors to add the dynamics I need to convey the movement of my works.
Motion Theory – stemming from how I'm wired (left-handed) and my creative self-upbringing, I create in a right-to-left and circular order – completely against the western fashion of doing things (left to right and analytical). I give a heavy hand to creating with 'motion' to stimulate eye-movement to prevent myself from getting bored with my own works of art and to excite the viewer with a higher-level of peaked interest than what's traditionally available.
style
DKWAN’s art has roots in the tradition of Picasso’s synthetic cubism, Matisse's color theories, home-grown bay area street scenes, and retro Sci-Fi themes from the 1990's to 2000's.
His art focuses on the 'interpersonal' and 'intrapersonal' dynamics between his created figures to explore the 'human condition' and his own emotions and moods at the time of his work creations.
DKWAN's art is an explorative experience for himself at a constantly evolving pace of 'curiosity' between contours, compositions, mediums, and patterns. What's 'new' becomes 'old' and the curse of constantly widening his experiential 'width' and deepening the 'verticals' of his thoughts keeps his art fresh and anew.
“When I produce from my Sensibility, the inescapable kernel-self that characterizes our 'individual', I tend to produce work from the edge of my comfort spectrum to an area where only curiosity exists. I rely heavily on my appetite for risk and personal volatility to produce something new and unfamiliar when progressing my artistic evolution. This process involves a series of questioning, forms of personal Deconstructionism and a large objective to test myself, as an Artist, against my own body of work– to see who 'masters' whom. Very often, the challenge of my art tames me, where only after several revisits can I ‘crack’ the code to its visual essence and complete it as a new 'conquest'. The end result is a daringly more beautiful image than anything I could have possibly imagined, which is why you’ll find elements of ‘random togetherness’ throughout all of my pieces as this is how my life is personally composed.”
- DKWAN
