I’m really intrigued by the draw­ings done by Dan Rocca. Upon first view­ing his web­site, there is instant bom­bard­ment of motion and color. At first glance, it could seem jar­ring and con­fus­ing, but with a lit­tle time spent it makes sense. I think that these feel­ings trans­late to other areas of his work, espe­cially with the drawings.

When nav­i­gat­ing through Dan’s draw­ings, I treat them like I’m look­ing at a puz­zle. I take the lim­ited words and sym­bols he’s pre­sented, and I try to make sense by con­nect­ing all of the indi­vid­ual pieces. I’m not sure if that’s the right way to do it, but I enjoy mov­ing through Dan’s work like this. I think the beauty is that you can look at this as a sum or in pieces. Each way has a dif­fer­ent story and dif­fer­ent sort of nar­ra­tive.

Dan’s work seems to marry both the past with the present, with rit­ual and con­ven­tional wis­dom from long ago, but touch­ing on very real issues per­ti­nent to our present day.

All images via his web­site.