Madonna of Chance Painting

Dan May’s been finding the humor in the world of power, politics, entertainment, and religion for the past twenty years in his design work for Fortune 500 companies, as well as his personal work. In that vein, his ironic pieces parodying the nuclear civil defense posters of the 1950s entitled ’Thank God for the Atomic Bomb,” and ‘Dr. Mutato Explains it all," was published in the "International Show Against Nuclear Testing,” Catalog as well as being part of the United Nations exhibition in New York and Vienna in 2016. Pieces of his work Pin Ball Philosophy Series were featured in the 'New York Now' exhibition in 2015 where he depicted religious icons as the subject matter in pinball game displays. He has exhibited in a variety of traditional print, and digital mediums appearing in shows in Sofia, Bulgaria where a series of screen prints were exhibited in an International Juried Exhibition, while two of his paintings were included in Barcelona’s 2017 Exhibition. His “popes as candy wrappers” series was included in a group show in Rome in 2017, and he has been part of group exhibitions in Los Angeles, CA, for an underground poster art show, Denver CO, Portland OR, St. Louis MO, and San Francisco CA in the AIGA Compost Modern Show. His article on sustainable design, and how to combat the process of creating desire when a need does not exist was published as part of a journal on new approaches to educating in the Library of Congress in 2011, and his continuing research into the neuroaesthetics realm attempts to begin the process of studying art as a science. Prior to his art career, Dan worked at a variety of manual labor jobs from assembly line work, to steel worker, to dock worker. After his self described sell out in 1992 to the design industry, he began his career in art by working first as a production, artist, illustrator, and then designer of merchandise and posters for touring rock icons which include: Eric Clapton, John Lennon (via Yoko Ono), Cream, Queen, ZZ Top, The Stray Cats, Brian Setzer and a host of others under contract with BMG and Sony Music. His work has been distributed internationally as part of tour merchandise, and his package design work was contracted by General Foods, and WalMart. In addition he has designed posters, and collateral merchandise for movies such as Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Kill Bill I and Kill Bill II.