Do-Si-Do

Dan Christensen a painter whose paintings were known for their festivity and bright colors was born in Nebraska.  He completed his studies at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1964 and moved to New York shortly thereafter.

Although his brilliant spray-painted bands were well received; he strived to find new ways to express his fascination with color.   Thus his paintings of rectangular blocks came to be known as his “plaid” series. The plaid series evolved into another technique in which he layered different colors thus he created a sense of depth, a technique he called “slab” paintings.   In the 1990s, his work evolved to the “circle” paintings of radiant rounded forms.

An example of the glowing disks that characterized his circle technique is “Do-Si-Do”, in which a series of concentric circles was depicted and shows his long obsession with color.  In this painting Christensen was recalling childhood memories of hot summer days dominated by a relentless sun in the sky. An alternate interpretation of the work involves consideration of the “Do-Si-Do” dance maneuver in which participants move around one another or as the planets rotate around the sun in our solar system occasionally exhibiting paradoxical travels like they are intoxicated from the overpowering brilliance of Ηλιος the Sun-God.

   

Dan Christensen (1942-2007), Do-Si-Do, 1991, American. Acrylic on canvas. 177.8 × 177.8 cm. Courtesy of the Wichita Art Museum (https://www.wichitaartmuseum.org/), Wichita, Kansas.

Excerpt from the article by Jeanette M. Smith, MD JAMA. 2015;313(11):1084-1085