Yaron Dotan

Something New

Yaron Dotan, born in New York, is a Los Angeles-based artist who works in a variety of media and styles to produce optical drawings, narrative paintings, portraiture and video art. He holds an MFA from Tufts University, an MS in education from St. John’s University and a BA in English literature from Queens College. Having only ever seen out of one eye, Dotan has used what would otherwise be a hindrance to heighten his creativity. Through a body of optical paintings that combine realistic imagery with rhythmic lines inspired by optical design, he poses questions about the nature of perception, illusion, invisibility and certainty. In California he has shown at bG Gallery, Gallery 825, Trunk Gallery, Los Angeles County Development Authority, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Art Share Los Angeles, Atrium 26, the Coachella Valley Art Center, the Manhattan Beach Art Center, Surrogate Gallery Projects and the California State University Northridge Art Gallery. In New York, Dotan’s work was shown at Art in Flux Harlem and SpaceWomb. Internationally he has also shown at the Jerusalem Biennale and in 2017 he showed at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art. In Brooklyn, Dotan developed a mural program for at-risk high school students to create murals in schools throughout the borough. His mural efforts were broadly covered by the press, including the Brooklyn Eagle, The Home Reporter, Sing Tao Daily, News 12 Brooklyn, Sinovision and have appeared in The New York Times. In Los Angeles, he co-developed StArt Projects, a program designed to help advanced high school art students create large scale projects in a variety of different media. As part of a project, Dotan has traveled throughout more than 20 states drawing roadside portraits of people from all walks of life using his signature marker and white-out style in what became the Draw America Project.