Aubree Dale is a multidisciplinary artist that describes her style as abstract maximalism, using expansive color palettes and translucent layers.
She values technical and creative challenges. She works with various media, including sculpture, bioplastics and assemblage.
She’s now a guest artist opening an exhibit of her work, “Resetting the Pace,” which is on display in TR Campus’ East Fork Gallery until Dec. 6.
The exhibit invites viewers to explore the joys of life reflected through large- and small-scale oil paintings that take snapshots of natural landscapes and intimate settings.
“I like the technical challenge of making something really bright,” Dale said. “If you take any of these colors just on their own, they’re going to be very different. So, context and what’s adjacent to it is pretty significant to how we perceive it.”
Dale’s love for art started in her childhood where she was influenced by seeing how her mom liked to decorate and work on crafts. Supportive art teachers in high school helped guide her decision to pursue art more seriously.
Recently becoming more comfortable with sharing these parts of her, Dale talked about how each piece shows universal human experiences. This is her way of documenting her own experiences and sharing them with people.
Each piece tells its own story from showing friends enjoying each other’s company, reflecting on long-term friendships, places around Austin she experienced while living there and finding art with things around her house in Fort Worth.
Human elements are incorporated into her art, sometimes using figurative work to represent various scenarios or emotions.
She said the piece “Soaked” is her favorite. This painting started off as a different series but evolved into personal reflection on feeling rejected by a place.
“It’s just something you put on yourself to feel like you don’t fit in,” Dale said. “It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.”
The painting was done in multiple layers, using a toothpick to create various galaxies and make the grass look textured. She played with translucent layers and smears, bringing different techniques to it.
“I’m most interested in this one because I really enjoyed working on the night sky,” Dale said.
She talked about the importance of composition and viewer experience, arranging objects or blocks to create dynamic and balanced arrangements, manipulating materials and building systems to be efficient, experimenting with making her own bioplastics.
“I thought it’d be interesting to create packaging, but from bioplastics so they’re more minimalistic,” she said.
Dale highlighted the significance of family support, community and maintaining artistic integrity. She advised aspiring artists to experiment, learn diverse skills and prioritize their own vision.
Gwen Meharg, artist and friend, described Dale as one of her artist heroes, explaining how her work is the kind of work you can sit with, and you’ll see something new every time.
“There are deep stories behind everything,” Meharg said.
