Dan Mills: Quest

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery
Chicago

July 13 - August 25, 2012

The paintings in Quest take the opposite tack of earlier heavily annotated work. With these, Mills starts with colonial maps (and he makes the point that most maps, in some way, contain evidence of colonization and conquest). These are reworked in ways that transform text – including place names, keys and ancillary information - into abstract forms and colors according to rules and systems that he chooses not to divulge. The eye-catching results are reminders of the artifice of all mapping systems.

 –Eleanor Heartney, “Dan Mills – The Will to Power” essay, Dan Mills: Quest & US Future States Atlas and related material catalogue, Chicago Cultural Center & Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, 2012