“Cowboys and Indians”. Oil on canvas.

 

“Send-Off”. Oil on canvas.

 

“Cast-Away”. Oil on canvas.

 

Mini Interview with DAN LYDERSEN:

Your childhood ambition:

When I was a little kid I wanted to be an actor. I grew up around community theater and I loved every aspect of it. I’d still love to work in theater but not as an actor. Now I’m more interested in costume, set-design, etc. My approach to painting satisfies those interests in some ways, since I’m essentially creating narratives where I act as writer, director, and costume/set designer. Of course painting is fundamentally a solitary practice whereas theater is a collaborative one. I miss working with other creative people.

Something you treasure:

Laughing.

Your worst habit:

My personal habits are none of the internet’s business. My worst habit as a painter is spending a lot of time working on a sketch, turning it into a painting, working on it for several weeks before realizing it was a bad idea and scrapping it. That’s sort of a necessary bad habit though. Anyone who thinks that all of their ideas are good ones is delusional. I’d rather have weeks of work go down the drain than show a painting I don’t believe in.

The aspect of your work that’s most important to you:

Different people get very different things out of my work, both positive and negative. It took me a long time to realize that none of that mattered as long as I liked what I was doing. The most important thing to me is to make the paintings that I want to see.

Your first job:

Babysitting, and I hated that almost as much as working at a gas-station car-wash (my second job).

Someone whose work you highly recommend:

I’d tell you, but then I’d have to think of a new security question for my online banking profile.

 

View Dan’s artwork here.