Artist Feature:
Dakota Noot
The Past is Pregnant, and
I’m wearing Medora and the history of North Dakota
Photo-performance
Photographer credit:
Christopher Velasco.
Statement:
I draw paper worlds. With crayon, color pencil, and marker, I create installations and wearable art that can be taped to my body. I want to transform myself, playing with my own species and identity. Paper cutouts enhance and transform both my appearance and my studio apartment, making me into a cartoon character than can be rural, violent, and queer. My work imagines my life like a cartoon show, leaning into humor and slapstick through photographs and videos that document the drawings. I often play into science fiction, fantasy, and horror tropes. Even when my drawings are of cowboys or historical rural figures, they become mutated. Extra limbs are grown, removed, and eaten in paper-form. Animals devour humans or become one with them. Although I grew up in rural North Dakota before moving to Los Angeles, I still understand my world through genres like body horror and film. Instead of watching the TV for escapist fantasies, I now live in and create it.
RRCC 