There is simply just no way to overstate the influence airbrushing experienced on Donahue’s career and inventive approach: “All of my functions originate from the communal part of airbrushing,” he claims. It stays a regular element of his perform. His 2018 solo show titled R.I.P. at Elephant Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee, was an airbrushed memorial to victims of gun violence from the earlier two several years in Middle Tennessee and integrated airbrushed T-shirts and canvases. One of the items, titled Rest In Paradise 2, depicts a lush pink and yellow sunset behind blue and pink water and palm trees leaning on the shore. The water—red closest to the horizon turns blue closest the shore—comes to a place as if flowing into a scaled-down overall body of water between the palm trees, signaling, possibly, the start out of a journey.
While he commenced by airbrushing outfits, Donahue swiftly transitioned to painting and airbrushing uncovered objects, more entrenching his philosophy of layering and customization. “Collecting issues, acquiring issues, doing the job from items that are in the vernacular, I assume I bought that pure,” Donahue says. He describes looking at his grandfather improvise fixes for doorway latches and excess security bars for the windows all around the property. “They were not getting fastened to OSHA criteria, they were make-shift. When you do not have a lot you make do with what you have.”
It was not until finally graduate university at the College of Tennessee, Knoxville, that Donahue commenced charting new approaches to join with many others through art, this time via object generating. Donahue turned towards assemblage and sculpture operate and commenced incorporating vacuum forming into his system. One particular piece, titled Hubwoofers, from a 2013 set up was made of vacuum-fashioned hubcaps with polystyrene and spray paint. These putting black packing containers, positioned a person on top rated of the other, are reminiscent of stacked subwoofers at a dwelling social gathering or club.
Even though attending the College of Tennessee, from which he acquired his MFA in 2013, Donahue’s course of action was pushed forward and redefined by a studio take a look at from Willie Cole, the artist also known as “The Transformer.” Cole transforms women’s significant heel sneakers into African masks and sculptures, and Donahue internalized Cole’s information “to hear to the spirit of objects, let them notify you what they want to do. They previously have a history.”
