Materializing space into a simple geometry, Damon Soule works in the fissure between pop surrealism, neo cubism and fractalism. Using geometrical elements he creates the illusion of the third dimension, and his shapes are allowed to slide, flip, and rotate, all meeting at the same corners. He uses proportions, patterns, and geometry, proving proficiency in spatial understanding and advanced mathematics.

He uses a traditional trompe-l'oeil technique, complete with shadow, in much of his work, i.e. his rendering of a quasi-pixilated image of Abraham Lincoln, constructed of polyhedrons and tessellations. And invoking something like the Mobius Strip, Soule paints strings of cubes eddying through his vivid cosmos, turning some degrees long ways though falling short of connecting at the ends, and just dropping off, into an infinite space of celestial anomalies.

A number of painterly elements are scattered over his paintings, creating this illusion of spontaneous space, cosmic debris, the borderlands of astral travels. His version of the universe is diagrammed by hard outlines of form, everything spiraling in from the borderlands, and with maximum intensity.

He paints with a great verve in expressive power of his planar components, precise honeycombs of color, constructing this universe with mutually stimulating colors, highly saturated, and wonderfully vivid. Even Soule's discordant, high-keyed oranges and teals and pinks and neons and yellows are chromatically magnificent in his nervous (yet meticulous, obsessively compulsive) contour and color and shape.

--Jolene Torr

(*Images, from top to bottom:  Damon Soule, Sequenced Events, acrylic, enamel on canvas, 18" x 24".  Damon Soule, Contemplating the Need for Inspiration - or Homage to Dali's Homage to Rothko, acrylic, enamel on panel, 25.5" x 31.5".  Damon Soule, Cluster Fuck (4 of 4), acrylic, enamel on canvas, 6" x 6" x 2.5".  All images courtesy of the Artist and Fecal Face Dot Gallery.)