Studio Visit: Dan Climan
Dan, how are you? Please introduce yourself for those who may not know your work.
Hey! My name is Dan, I'm a painter from Montreal.
I studied art at university in Vancouver and have done a lot of graphic design work, mostly creating logos and typefaces for brands, and was a full-time tattooer for over a decade.
Your paintings often feel like fragmented memories, fleeting moments from a dream or cinematic stills. Do you think of yourself more as an observer or a storyteller through them?
I’m a bit of a mix of the two. As a viewer, you can picture a life that you potentially want, or find yourself connecting with the characters or the landscape of the movie that you're watching. And my work has a tendency to consider the feelings that a viewer may feel when looking at images. I place myself as the observer and portray visuals that have a specific feeling to them. But, I also act as the storyteller by creating an image where the audience is figuring out what that story is and I'm giving them little cues to help them figure that out.
With that in mind, how does your perspective influence the way you approach the composition and emotional tone of your paintings?
I've always been attracted to a more minimal approach to pictures and a simplistic design. My compositions are a throwback to really old graphic design - a process where the printing was done layer by layer on acetate. There was something in the front of the image or the advertisement, and then as the acetates went one on top of the other, you would get more depth within the image.
I also like to, especially with large-scale paintings, have something comforting to spend time with. So I gravitate towards a more tonal palette, like, pastel colors or colors with a lot of beige and gray in them. I think that it sets a tone for the viewer, with a sense of calm, and maybe have a pop of really loud color in the painting to catch your eye. More than anything, I'm looking for a sense of wonder in the work.
You've mentioned that a lot of your inspiration comes from memories of your childhood, photos you capture, or older cinema. When you begin a painting, do you have a specific vision in mind, or is it more of an unfolding process where these inspirations merge and the painting reveals itself as you go?
It's definitely a bit of both! I'm constantly looking for inspiration and ideas for paintings, whether it's photos that I take myself, or screen stills of old films that I'm watching, or things that I see in books or magazines. If you went through my phone right now, you'd probably see about, like, 15,000 screenshots. So, when I begin a painting, it starts with some kind of reference of something that caught my eye.
Sometimes one of those images will have a certain feeling that I'm looking for, but as I start to paint it, I realize that, maybe a painting that I started that was in the daytime has more of what I'm looking for as a nighttime painting, or maybe the car that I added to the landscape is actually taking away from the viewer’s experience, so then the car has to be taken out of the image.
It's really a fine balance - sometimes the process is quite organized but there's also lots of room for things to happen organically. As my practice goes on, I'm trying to let it happen organically more, because at the end of the day, especially with the large-scale work, when there is a canvas in front of you and you do put down colour, the feeling is so visceral that, the work definitely leads where you're going.
There’s an eeriness to some of your pieces that seems to play with both comfort and discomfort. How do you balance these emotions in your work?
I go back to idea that, as a youth, it's always the things that we were told that were bad for us that were the most alluring. Even in looking at a painting of, for example, the viewer watching people in a swimming pool through a fence, there is this idea that like potentially they snuck into the pool and there's a bit of risk.
But, the sense of comfort and discomfort depends on the viewer. In ‘A few options’, a driver is driving towards a car in the desert with the hood open. This feels like it’s from a scene we’ve seen in a film where there’s a sense of imminent danger but, another person can see it differently. Maybe there’s somebody on the way to pick them up. Is the car even broken down or is the driver just checking something under the hood?
I think why the work speaks to a lot of people is because everyone creates their own emotional reaction or connection to the piece. Instead of me letting them dictate every scenario in great detail, it leaves room for each person to take it in on their own terms.
Your art evokes a strong sense of nostalgia, but with an uncanny twist. How do you decide how much of reality to ground your paintings in versus leaning into the surreal?
To keep the narrative open to the viewer’s interpretation, I choose to omit certain details. You know, I don't want to tell you where the landscape is exactly, or what kind of car make it is, or who the figures are. I never paint faces, really. I think that that would be too much information, and it would take away from the point of making up the story for yourself.
There's a saying in design that says it's only finished when there's nothing left to take away. And, I try to keep just enough detail that will catch your eye and feel a certain way. That lack of detail can definitely lean into the surreal.
Does the theme of home play an integral role in your work?
I’d say it more contributes to my sensibilities and how that shows up in my work. I grew up in an older house where my room was about 10ft by 10ft with two beautiful French doors. We had old water heaters and old windows. So, I definitely think of that type of home and that era as references for my work.
You use quite a unique color palette in your pieces. Do you find that your chosen palette helps convey a certain psychological impact in your paintings?I’ve always been attracted to things that are a little more muted in tone. That might come from my love of older graphic design and kind of signage from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Everything was a little bit more pastel. We didn't have vibrant fluo colors the same way. If we even look back to some of the old Dieter Rams and Braun designs. Everything was made out of this beautiful, old beige, creamy plastic with a little bit of black or a little bit of brown, maybe a hit of orange here and there. But nothing was, like, that colorful or in your face. And, even some of the painters that I really look up to, like, Peter Doig and Alice Neel, their color palette is a little bit subdued. In doing so, you're really forced to like focus in on the work and experience it in a different way.
Does Montreal, or its particular energy, influence your artistic vision?
Coming back to anywhere where you grew up after living abroad for almost ten years will definitely make you feel a certain way. Alex Colville, a Canadian painter who lived in Nova Scotia in his childhood, talks about how you can really experience history when they've lived in the same place for a long time. I've been in Montreal for so long that I can walk through different parts of the city and talk about different experiences I've had, whether they were, a couple years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
There’s also an emotional shift between each neighbourhood. Montreal has different neighborhoods that are all very accessible to one another and as you walk through the city, you see and feel the different architecture, the different vibe, the different people who live there. That shift exists in my work - from one painting to the next, you're experiencing a different feeling.
Because we can't pass up an opportunity to talk about cinema, what are your top three movies?
My top three would have to be:
#1: The Royal Tenenbaums.
#2: The Goonies. I'll never forget being sick when I was a kid and my dad asking me if there was anything he could do to make me feel better and I asked him for a copy of the Goonies.
#3: A real classic, Goodfellas.
There's definitely some more artful films that I really enjoy, like Paris, Texas but realistically these are the top three movies that I could watch over and over again and are really, really close to home.
Any work or upcoming shows the people should be looking out for?
I'm working towards a solo show in Los Angeles in March, but other than that I will be releasing a new print in November. I had a really busy couple of years releasing a book, opening a restaurant, and having some shows, so right now I'm just trying to put my head down and, paint a lot and seeing what comes from that.
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