Upon entering Damon Soule’s painted wonderland, I feel compelled to linger, absorbing and identifying all the forms and characters. In this fantastical world, a multi-faced, half-organic robot commiserates with birds who wear their hearts on the outside. They are listening to the elegant, symphonic swoops of black ink, and meditating on whether the borrowed blueprints will unstick themselves from the walls and set out to find their lost structures. It’s as though someone had a Technicolor yawn in the porcelain thrown, and we’re looking at the most beautiful painting as we swirl down the drain during a violent flush.
Soule, who enjoys the rare luxury of life as a full-time artist, has completed an extensive project furnishing pieces for Luna Park in San Francisco and Los Angeles; he is currently creating art for the entire New York location. He was also commissioned to paint murals on the bedroom walls of Danielle Steele’s daughters. Absolutely none of these accomplishments have tarnished his humility – a quality that may spring from the fact that his father was a painter. Growing up with an artist-family member endowed Soule with the courage to pursue art as a kid while dissipating romantic notions of the artistic life. Soule says that he “has more freedom than most jobs. I have plenty of time to do what I want. It’s a job – a fun job. I’m really fortunate. A lot of people have jobs making bombs, for example. I could be doing that.”
