Various Positions represents a complex and variegated approach to painting in which Michael Dopp makes the gestures themselves the subjects of the work. The paintings in this exhibition plot points along a timeline, whereas the viewer’s vision takes in a chronology of making simultaneously. The title also conjures up something playful and corporeal, though the work references the body only by suggestion. Layers of process are exposed yet the methods are obscured. Paint is applied to raw canvases by in turn being sprayed, poured and brushed, with each layer acting as a distinct filter, with the material and the image pivoting around each other. The geometric shapes pulse on the canvas. Absorption and resistance become means of conveying Dopp’s intent.
