About the Artist

My work is inspired by the information lost in the application of a rigid taxonomy and the choices one makes when constructing narrative. How does our identity differ from our exterior presentation? How does our history of gendered materials apply to a transgender landscape? My practice investigates these questions and challenges false binaries through the creation of Second Skins: encasing furniture in polyethylene membranes or contouring yarn to trace the grain on found wood.

I draw inspiration from camp, drag, theater, and the club scene: spaces where reality is the product of illusion. I reside in subcultures prioritizing materiality, accruing value through attention and labor instead of inherent market worth. Proudly trans nonbinary, I extend my own queering unto inanimate objects. I construct my work to break presumed polarities and construct entities encapsulating the full spectrum of hard and soft, wood and fiber, masculine and feminine.

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Douglas Dale was born in Springfield, MA in 1993. They received their BA from Grinnell College in 2015 with honors and time at Sorbonne Université in Paris, France. They have spent years working at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, textile studio Carolyn Ray Inc. in Yonkers, NY and product incubator FCTRY in Brooklyn.

Their work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, working with Fiber Art Now, The American Craft Council, Craft Alliance, the Sebastopol Center for the Arts California, The Galesburg Civic Art Center, The North Dakota Museum of Art, The Center for the Visual Arts of Wausau Wisconsin, and the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
Dale is trans non-binary and currently lives and works in St. Louis, MO.