SOLO ACT

Art exhibition from San Francisco born, and current Los Angeles based artist Dylan Bartolini-Volk.

Presenting Abstract Acrylic Paintings, Furniture, and Home Goods.

To request a catalog please email:  bvstudiosla@gmail.com

ARTIST STATEMENT:

I am driven by the reward of hard work, and the belief that life is a gift meant to be wrung dry. I value momentum, self-sufficiency, and the pursuit of experience. I expect a great deal from life, and I give a great deal in return.

This outlook was shaped by a formative event in my youth. In high school, I was struck in the head by a baseball while pitching, fracturing my skull causing internal bleeding. After days in the ICU and a long recovery, I returned to life without fully understanding the trauma I had endured. Two years later, an unexpected emotional release marked a turning point—an awakening to how fortunate I was simply to be alive. From that moment forward, I committed to going all in. That decision has defined my adult life and career. When obstacles arise, they redirect me rather than deter me, opening new paths and discoveries.

The American West is my muse—primarily California, and also Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. My work is an interpretation of landscape, home, family, and place. I am drawn to the tension between the rigidity of the built environment and the vast, organic systems of the natural world, particularly the absurdity of property lines slicing through ancient terrain.

I draw from aerial perspectives and the shifting seasons experienced through countless road trips. Driving, flying, and rafting through the Sierra Nevada and the deep canyons of Utah have shaped this body of work. From above, winter reduces the landscape to stark values—trees turn black, color disappears. In contrast, the trees and rock formations along the San Juan River form vibrant, graphic compositions that feel both poetic and precise. Seasonal shifts alter tone and value; with that light transforms all elements of the land.

I feel compelled to translate what I see into visual form. If I do not attempt to make the work, it unsettles me. My practice is a celebration of my life and my experience of the world. The final interpretation is left intentionally open, belonging to the viewer.