Dolk’s (1979) new exhibition “Feint” consists of monochromatic canvases, a series of conceptual works, which are reliant on their context, revolving around the relationship between recoating versus graffiti, in a minimalistic and strongly abstracted expression. “Feint” is defined as a mock blow or attack on or toward one part in order to distract attention from the point one really intends to attack.
The critically acclaimed two-part exhibition "Rip on/ Rip off" marked a change in the artists nearly thirteen years as one of the worlds most recognized street-artists. His new exhibition is titled “Feint” at Galleri Brandstrup consists of new works, is a continuing development of his new project turning away from stencils.
The conflicting relationship between graffiti and recoating are really two separate elements from the cityscape, which is only united in the case of censure or as a result of disapproval. In Dolk’s works however, the two elements are brought together, frozen at a point of harmony and union, creating a form of reconciliation between them that only exists in withdrawing them from their original context.
Dolk uses boards in custom-made aluminum with a perfectly coated surface, of which Dolk sprays on by using car paint, which he grades of different colors. As in his exhibition "Rip on/ Rip off", the car paint in “Feint” is associated with perfection, where he created scratches in the surface. For “Feint”, Dolk disrupts the perfect surface by using oversized paint rollers, creating an almost cliché like pattern commonly known from a paint roller of which has just been trolled in a paint pan. This pattern is inevitable, like an error covering another one.
In Dolk’s new series of paintings, the relationship between the polished canvas and the raw pattern is a relationship between high and low culture, as the perfect exterior of the aluminum canvas is being painted over in such a grand gesture. However, one cannot see pass the fact that the abstract expressionist tradition of the 1960’ies has put his mark on Dolk’s art. One can see the rawness of Robert Motherwell, the stripes of Frank Stella’s “Black Paintings” and the soft grading of Mark Rothko.