30 Mar Artist/Curator Profile: Dakota Noot
In this edition of the artist interview, the OC Art Blog had the pleasure of asking Dakota Noot some questions about both his art and curatorial practices. Dakota Noot’s work vibrates with radiant contradiction, rural and queer, grotesque and playful, mythic and autobiographical. Growing up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and now working between Los Angeles and Orange County, Noot draws on a childhood shaped by farm life and hunting culture to conjure vibrant animal-human hybrids that subvert and celebrate identity. Whether through crayon-sketched “Human Paper Doll” performances or neon-hued self-portraits, Noot’s art opens portals into fantastical queer worlds, where horror wears a grin and camp holds sacred space for transformation. As Gallery Director of the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion at Orange Coast College, Noot brings that same irreverent curiosity and commitment to representation into his curatorial work, championing underrecognized voices and DIY energy within institutional walls. Let’s meet Dakota Noot.
Your work often explores rural, fantastical queer identities through animal-human hybrids. Can you talk about the origin of this imagery and what it opens up for you creatively?
I grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota and many of my extended family members still farm and hunt. Animal-human hybrids allowed me to question my surroundings, diet, and culture – even as I later moved to California. Animal-human hybrids are also tied to mythology. By becoming an animal, I can find power and transformation.
How has your upbringing or personal background informed the recurring motifs in your work?
I often take on and subvert images of masculinity (farmers, cowboys) in humorous or suggestive ways. I also take on feminine forms through drawn hair, nails, and pregnancies (albeit mutated). As a fan of horror films and camp, I embrace the grotesque yet make it playful.
There’s a playfulness and grotesqueness in your creatures—how do humor and horror coexist in your practice?
Humor (and my colorful palette of neons and crayola) allow the horror to be more digestible and cartoon-like. I was raised on the cartoon horror and violence of Clive Barker’s illustrations and TV shows (“Courage the Cowardly Dog”). I quest to make my own worlds.
Do you see your work as autobiographical, allegorical, or something else entirely?
I am my own canvas. My paintings are self-portraits. I am most known as a “Human Paper Doll” – where I draw wearable art for my body with crayon and stage it for photos, videos, and performances. It comes from me: even if abstracted sometimes more into dream logic than literal narratives. I create “Gods and Monsters” from my body.
What artists, writers, or filmmakers have influenced your visual language?
Jack Smith, Clive Barker, and Paul Thek activate the weird, queer, and violent realms of my imagination.
You’re now the Gallery Director at the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion. How has curating and arts programming influenced your own art practice—or vice versa?
It’s made me more controlled and decisive (as I mix the time to make work with curation). Strangely enough, the “public speaking” aspect of being Director has made me more confident with performance art (and not just my fashion style). Curating has also resurrected my drive to make art and installations.
What kind of exhibitions or curatorial themes excite you most right now?
I’m drawn to multidisciplinary and fiber artists at the moment. As a college gallery, it’s exciting to celebrate artists from artist-run-spaces who are not considered sellable. I can bring on that punk, DIY art of either LA (shoutout to LAST Projects) or Orange County.
How do you approach creating space for student, emerging, or underrepresented voices at the Pavilion?
I want to show students art that they won’t see in the classroom or online. It can be fun and whimsical (such as the recent solo show, “Wizard Hours” by Elías Hernández, which highlighted werewolves and clock-wizard) or accessible (such as the podcast-driven “What’s My Thesis?” group show). Curation can also bring in underrepresented voices: such as a solo show and group show by Black, mostly women artists in Fall 2024. As someone who lives and works between LA and OC, I like to break convention. I am younger, queer, and unlike probably any of the curators (and educators) at most colleges.
What’s one thing you wish more people understood about working as both an artist and a curator?
Artists should curate. It’s a lifeblood of supporting other artists and building community. We have a freedom in how we look at art and color when curating: making it more fun and possible compared to art historians and commercial spaces.
Your work is rooted in the aesthetics of queerness and the rural—two worlds often seen in opposition. What kinds of conversations do you hope your work sparks between those worlds?
I want to create images of representation: for both me as a child and hopefully, others who come after me. I had only queer representation of those who lived in cities. Even as I’ve moved to LA, I’ve never lost that North Dakota flavor in my art and humor. At the same time, I do find joy in my success. My queer, mutated art will become someone’s view of North Dakota. The Midwest is that wonderfully weird.
As a Los Angeles-based artist working in Orange County, what are you noticing about the art scenes in each place—how do they contrast or complement each other?
I feel like galleries in Orange County are more approachable and underrecognized. There can be an unfair attitude by those in Los Angeles against Orange County (one of my graduate professors refused to attend a show in Norwalk for supposedly being ‘Orange County’ when it’s not). On the other hand, OC museums do struggle to showcase local talent (and not look to LA or those “vetted” there). This is hopefully changing with spaces like Unveil Gallery, the opening of VSF in Tustin, Virginia Arce with Irvine Fine Arts Center, or on the college-level with me (the Doyle) or Chapman University (Guggenheim Gallery). As an artist, curator, and friend, I feel like Juan Gomez embodies the best of Orange County and its resilience.
What’s next for you—either as an artist, curator, or both? Any upcoming projects you’re excited about?
I am in an upcoming group exhibit by Coaxial at Human Resources (April 18-27) and others to be announced. As a curator, I am excited to plan the upcoming Fall 2025 shows for the Doyle, which will include fiber artists, an OCC alumni solo show, and a public art pop-up. Details to come!
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