DAKOTA X

(American b. Boston, 1961) is an American Painter, Curator and Founder of Pinesmoke Artist Residency based in Mountain Center, CA. X received a BFA and BS Masters of Arts in Teaching, Art Education from The Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University respectively.

X’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), Provincetown, MA. X is a recipient of the Orlowsky Freed Foundation Grant sponsored in part by PAAM (2011) and a finalist in the shortlist of seventy for the 2018 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Work by Dakota X has been included in curatorial exhibitions at The Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA; The Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA; William Scott Gallery, Provincetown, MA; MM Fine Art, South Hampton, NY, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA; William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art, California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA; Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; The Salton Sea History Museum, North Shore, CA; New Museum Los Gatos, Los Gatos, CA; Orange County Center of Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; The Marks Art Center, College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA; Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA; Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA; Sam Francis Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Launch LA, Los Angeles, CA; Billis Williams Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Annenberg Theatre, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; among others.

Past curatorial projects include WHAT WE GIVE, Curated by Dakota X, In collaboration with Author Randi Triant, The Provincetown Commons, Provincetown, MA (2022); Available to All, with Rough Play Projects (2018) in partnership with Mojave Desert Land Trust Reading The Landscape, Joshua Tree, CA; Earth Day Featuring Sarah Vanderlip with Rough Play Projects, (2018) in partnership with Mojave Desert Land Trust, Joshua Tree, CA; The Salton Sea: Lost In Paradise, (2016) with Historical works from the collection of the late Jennie Kelly, The Marks Art Center, College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA; Valley of the Ancient Lake: Works Inspired by the Salton Sea, (2011) with Historical works by Jennie Kelly, Salton Sea History Museum, North Shore, CA; Deborah Martin Gallery, Founder, Director, Curator, (2009-10); Downtown, Los Angeles, CA; Re: Materialization, with Shana Nys Dambrot, (2009) Deborah Martin Gallery, Downtown, Los Angeles, CA; Spring Arts Collective Gallery, Co-Founder, Director, Curator, (2006-09) Downtown, Los Angeles, CA.

X was Co Founder, Director and Curator of The original Spring Arts Collective Gallery (SAC) on the Mezzanine of the Spring Arts Tower (2006-2009) in Downtown Los Angeles, CA. X later founded the Deborah Martin Gallery (DMG) (2010) on the ground floor of the Spring Arts Tower located on 5th and Spring. Both SAC and DMG were members of the Downtown Gallery Association and active participants in the Original Downtown Art Walk founded by Gallerist Bert Green. In 2011, X relocated to various locations throughout the Mojave Desert (Joshua Tree, Twenty Nine Palms, Wonder Valley) to focus exclusively on an artistic practice before settling in Pinyon Pines, CA in 2020.

Over the past two decades, X’s artistic work focused on the complexities of individual experience particularly in relation to home, isolation and memory. X’s stark landscape paintings often feature marginalized communities located on the fringes of American society.

In 2017, X turned to portraiture to create Portraits of Autism a developing project. Portraits of Autism, explores the relationship and impact autistic adults and children have within their immediate family and community on a continuum. Each Portrait focuses in part on relationship, connection and methods of communication. This ongoing series follows the process a family goes through as their autistic child becomes an adult when access to Federally mandated funding is discontinued at the age of 21. The focus of each portrait is to provide an emotional experience and public connection to each subject as a unique individual who is not only defined by their “disability”.

Outside of the Binary - Opening the Narrative of Gender and The Memories You Keep - Surviving Generational Addiction and Mental Illness are current portrait projects.

For more information: DAKOTA X