Doug Cannell

Lives and works in Detroit, MI, USA

Artist statement

I was born and raised in Detroit. When I was young, Detroit was a thriving city of almost 2 million people, most of whom worked for car companies or in the supply chain that fed them. Due to economic downturns, racial tension and violence, and white flight, over the decades that followed, the city famously fell from prosperity and became a shell of what it once was. A metropolis engineered for 2 million residents now had a scant 600,000, leaving abandoned factories, schools, homes, businesses and vast areas of empty space. I was a witness to this epic transformation. I watched as abandoned houses began to cave in on themselves, as neighborhoods were cleared creating unintended green space, miles of storefronts went empty, and a rusty patina accumulated over massive industrial buildings. At the same time, I was being raised by white liberal parents who refused to join in that escape to the suburbs. My father was an organized and methodical man who made his living as an architect. The graphic precision, detailed drawing and impeccable lettering that architecture demanded of him always fascinated me. And all that exactitude was in the service of a very creative goal — designing a building. These rather paradoxical experiences laid the groundwork for my artistic aesthetic. I was — and still am — interested in a properly crafted product, but equally fascinated by loose, even messy, organic compositions like a splash of paint, the way leaves blow in the wind, or the way a bubble...

Artwork