A near-fatal biking accident in the small town of Cambridge, New York, in 2011 led Gill artist Doug Dale down an artistic venture of illustrating bikes, cows and landscapes that are now on display at the Rhodes Arts Center at Northfield Mount Hermon until October.
The exhibit, titled “Bicycles, Beaches and Bovines,” features 35 pieces of collage artwork that Dale has created over the last 14 years. He uses paper and paint to create the artwork that depicts images of what comes into his head while out on his bike.
“I had been fooling around more and more with the collage form of art, and I began to produce the stuff that kept popping into my head when I was out riding the bike,” he explained of his process at the start of his artistic career. (He says art is his 14th career in life; he’s a former biker, business owner, marketer and educator.)
His accident in April 2011 occurred while he was competing in the Tour of Battenkill Race in Cambridge. He sustained life-threatening injuries from internal bleeding and more than 20 bone fractures.
A year after the accident, and after “dabbling around” with some art techniques, he created a poster for the 2012 Battenkill Race that raised $4,000 at an to benefit the Cambridge EMTs who saved his life.
From 2012 onward, Dale created posters for the Battenkill Race, while also creating artwork reflective of the landscapes he’d see in Cambridge, like in his piece “Spectator,” where a group of bikers files under a red-covered bridge as cows look on. Other collages, like “Fast Women,” depict a part of the community he’s spent much of his life around.
While Dale says his work isn’t always based on a specific moment, he says his ideas for the collages are “serendipitous,” coming to him in a way he’s not exactly sure of, but using real-life images he’s collected for reference. Additionally, he says the landscapes of Cambridge, the Pioneer Valley, and New England can overlap, like a covered bridge.
“It has a lot of symbolism to me, because most of my life has been spent in New England, and when you ride a bike in New England, one of the the best treats in the world is to ride through covered bridges,” Dale said. “The geography around Cambridge is so similar to the geography throughout the Pioneer Valley. There’s always a connection there.”
In the 14 years he’s been creating artwork, Dale says he’s cultivated a “collectors network,” with people purchasing his work across the United States and internationally. In the time spent engaging with collectors, people stopping by his tent to view artwork at the Battenkill Bike Race each year, or in gallery shows, Dale says, people come away with different interpretations of his work.
“I learned so much about people when they come in and see a piece, and we begin to talk about the piece, and it ends up in this kind of autobiographical moment,” he said.
For example, his painting “Fast Women” depicted all white women biking when he created it and presented it at his annual Philadelphia art showcase – a fact he didn’t realize until a Black woman expressed her appreciation for the piece, but pointed out the lack of representation.
In this realization, Dale created another rendition of the piece to accurately represent the diversity of the community, which he says was met with an emotional response by one viewer, who said she finally saw herself represented.
In another instance, Dale points to his series “Going Home,” which depicts a child holding the hand of their parent while they are on a bike. A pregnant woman purchased one of the paintings in the series, knowing she wanted her baby to bike.
“Two years later, she came into the booth, and there was the young boy who had been in his mom’s tummy when she bought the piece,” Dale recalls. She then purchased the second image of the series, showing a young boy guided by his father on a bike.
“Those kinds of moments, there’s just no way to duplicate them,” Dale said.
When I produce a piece of work and I see the reaction of the viewer, that’s pretty much the whole reason.
Doug dale, collage artist
With his artwork on display at Northfield Mount Hermon until October, and this being his first solo exhibit, Dale says he hopes people come away with an appreciation for the human element of the physical artwork that is textured and layered, and find a connection, as others have before.
“Bicycles, Beaches and Bovines” is up through Oct. 10 at the Rhodes Arts Center at the Northfield Mount Hermon campus, 1 Lamplighter Way. Gallery visits can be arranged by appointment with Gallery Coordinator Mona Seno at mseno@nmhschool.org.
