Caitlyn Doran
Uncanny Intimacy
Monstera Stare, 2022 ,oil on wood panel, 36” x 48”
In opposition to the increasingly draining and disconnecting nature of our fast-paced hustle culture, Uncanny Intimacy, is a new series of portrait paintings that celebrate the sorts of oddness that can erupt from quiet, closeness, and downtime. Only alone or in trusted company does one typically tend to a monstera in the nude. The depths of such familiarity and vulnerability create a subtly surreal atmosphere present in each of the moments depicted. These paintings rely on personal photographic reference imagery that displays an intimate feeling or memory. This exacting nature of the images, disrupted by overly vibrant colors and physically carved-out fragments, further amplifies the startling, but healing nature of uncanny recontextualizations. The capacity for intimacy we can experience with others is important, but Uncanny Intimacy also aims to specify the familial ambiance humans can share with our everyday objects, some examples here being whippy houseplants, comforting garments, and clumsy computers.
Caitlyn Doran is a figurative painter and educator born in the Quad Cities and based in Chicago. She received her BFA in Drawing from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2016. Doran also lived in Japan and attended the Kanazawa College of Art oil painting program in 2018/19. She is the recipient of the Albert P. Weisman award in 2021 and 2022 as well as a Luminarts Fellowship. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the Midwest and abroad. She completed her MFA at Columbia College Chicago in 2022 and has since gone on to become one of Lillstreet Art Center’s artists in residence. Doran’s work captures the instant where the banal meets the fantastic, specifically personal encounters, both real and imagined, between humans, their animals, their objects, and each other.
Monstera Stare oil on wood panel 36" x 48"
Eddie With Muffs acrylic on carved linoleum 3" x 2"
Anna's Computer Injury acrylic on carved linoleum 3" x 2"
TJ with Muffs acrylic on carved linoleum 3" x 2"
Yokos Sleep Refuge/Refusal acrylic on linoleum 2" x 3"
To Make it Feel Better P ll acrylic on linoleum 3" x 2"