Today we’d like to introduce you to Dustin Massey.
Dustin, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I come from a family of architects and painters. All of the males on my mother’s side of the family were architects, and the females were painters. We have painters in our family dating back to the 14th century. My grandfather didn’t have any sons. I remember my mother attending the University of Louisville’s art program as a child. She was constantly painting and drawing. I was influenced by her at a very young age and have been drawing as long as I can remember. I was separated from my mother when I was 10. She was run over by a drunk driver in front of my brother and me. As a result, she could no longer take care of us, and we were sent to live with family in North Carolina. I no longer had exposure to art, but I kept drawing. In high school, I took drafting classes instead of art. I never really had a good relationship with my grandfather and never knew he wanted a son to take up the family profession. Immediately he became interested in me because he found out I was taking drafting classes, and I was considering going to the University of Kentucky for architecture.
At the last minute, I changed my mind and attended East Carolina University for art. My grandfather was incredibly disappointed and we never really spoke again after that. I was a huge pro wrestling fan, and they started to introduce smaller wrestlers while I was attending college. I got the bug and wanted to drop out to go to pro wrestling school in California. Some friends of mine introduced to me to a local indie wrestler named Poison Ivy. He suggested I stay in school and attend a local training school to find out if I liked it or not first before I made such a big decision. I was an independent student at ECU because I didn’t have parents. As a result, they let me borrow a lot of money. I was young and dumb, so I took extra money to pay for wrestling school. Uncle Sam paid for me to get an art degree and become a professional wrestler at the same time but didn’t know it. At the time, many of my art professors were upset with me pursuing wrestling. I broke my good hand one semester and had to take an incomplete in some classes. The head of the painting department was Paul Hartley. He always encouraged me to follow my dream. He used to be a boxer and understood what I was going through. He told me to do what I had to do, and art would always be here waiting for me when I was ready. CW Anderson from ECW was the head trainer of the wrestling school I attended. He soon introduced me to Shane Helms, and the Hardy boys. I was lucky to fall in with such a great group of talented guys, and I was hooked.
My art degree really helped me stand out. My character ended up being inspired not by wrestlers, but artists and musicians. Everyone was a tough guy, and I was a small guy trying to live in a big man’s world. I created a character who was insane and thought he was Britney Spears. I learned all of her dances and would buy different outfits for every show because Britney would never wear the same thing twice. My finishing move was a spear that I called the Britney Spears. I finished ECU got my art degree, and two weeks later I left to wrestle with Barnum and Bailey Circus in Canada for three months. I ended up wrestling for ten years. I did small work for WCW before they went out of business, I trained at WWE’s training school in 2006, and I did PPVs for TNA. It was a wild ride, and I didn’t go as far as I wanted to, but I was happy with what I accomplished. I have so many great memories and stories. I went into debt traveling for wrestling. I ended up in retail management in order to pay off that debt. I was very good at my job, but I hated it. I stayed with the company 15 years, and I got to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt I had gotten so far away from who I was. I wanted to be happy, and find myself again. I decided I would go back to graduate school and get my Masters in art. During this time I had completed zero art. I found out that schools wanted 20 images of work to apply to the program. I quit my job and painted everyday 9 to 5 for six months to generate enough work to apply.
I attended Clemson University and received my MFA in visual arts. My professor Paul Hartley was right. Art was there waiting on me, and I fell in love with it all over again. I felt like I had finally found myself and I finally ended up where I was supposed to be. There was a huge sense of belonging to the program. As I grew as an artist and started to interact with the art world outside of college, everyone was so supportive and helpful. It’s odd because I don’t know if that type of supportive environment exists anywhere else in the world. It definitely didn’t exist in pro wrestling. I’m happy to a part of that community and follow this art journey where ever it takes me.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
We live in a crazy time where we receive visual information in our society through constantly changing images. The world is saturated with information that is unedited, torrential, pixelated, flickering, backlit, and instantaneous. My work focuses on our reliance on technology and the use of social media. Through painting, I construct a world that exists somewhere between the physical and the digital and is an exaggerated reflection of our current cultural environment. In doing so, it helps me process and understands the cultural implications this has had or will have, on our society. I present a reconstructed world to the viewer in a way that is variously beautiful, playful, and erotic. However, it is also a world that is weird, grotesque, confusing and ambiguous to reflect the times in which we live. I do this to entice the viewer’s imagination and then have them examine the paintings with a critical eye. I provoke the viewer to contemplate where they fit in and consider their part in shaping this new world.
Do you think conditions are generally improving for artists? What more can cities and communities do to improve conditions for artists?
I think everything has become so much easier. I’m much older so I remember days where you had to mail slides or physically drop off work to get into shows. Now you can apply to everything all over the world as long as you can afford shipping costs. Instagram is amazing as well. It’s such a good platform to get your art out into the world and have it viewed. My IPad Pro does this annoying thing now where it tells me each week how much more screen time I have used. I just get lost for hours discovering new artists. I mentioned it before, but the community is great. I have developed a lot of friendships with other artists through Instagram that I have never met. We just share a love for each other’s work.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I have a couple of shows coming up soon. The closest will be a solo show coming up in Sugar Hill, Georgia right outside of Atlanta. It will be up from 3/25 to 4/30. There will be an artist talk and opening reception April 11th from 6-8. I also have a painting titled Shallow that will be in Artfields this year. I have another painting I Know What I Have Given You…I Don’t Know What You Have Received will be in a show titled Connections in Knoxville, Tennessee through A1 LabArts. That show will be up from March 1st to the 29th. The easiest way to see my work is to follow me on instagram@dustinleemassey. I update my Instagram page almost daily with progress pics of what I’m working on. My work can also be found at Lmasseyart.space, DustinMassey101@Twitter, and D.L. Massey art@Facebook. The best way to support an artist is either share their work on social media or buy art. If it’s not me, then someone else. Just support artists.
Contact Info:
- Email: dlmasseyvisualarts@gmail.com
- Instagram: Dustinleemassey@instagram
- Facebook: D.L. Massey art@Facebook
- Twitter: DustinMassey101@Twitter
Image Credit:
Dustin Massey
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