Frank Dorrey’s Pop Culture-Laden Art Has Been Catching the Eyes of Greats

A white cloud of smoke engulfs Frank Dorrey when he picks up my video call. The artist is sitting in a lamp-lit room, with– what I’m assuming is – a joint in one hand while a black hoodie and beanie cloaks his face. 

“It’s cold here,” he says between puffs.

“I’ve been in the house all day, just sleeping and watching the Sopranos.”

He’s in the throes of winter in Brooklyn, New York City and as he leans back on a white wall, attentive yet somehow distant, I get the impression that he’s simultaneously thinking about how to get his thoughts across while saying whatever’s on his mind. It makes sense for someone whose art is imbued with so much thought, yet at the same time spontaneity. 

In the past, his hyper-coloured, pop-culture imbued pieces have been described as “celebrations of blackness” and a connection to “shared trauma”. As journalist Sean Reveron put it, “Dorrey’s work is distorted and twisted, like the way dominant society wants us to see ourselves.” 

“I think it’s a bit like that, but I feel like it really captures my experiences,” he told VICE.

“Like, my experience is the black experience. I'm Haitian. We’re in love with bright colours and the fantastical. It just offers a reminiscence of that for me, and the people I'm close to. I feel like there's some sort of a collective understanding, you know?”

Dorrey’s pieces float somewhere between personal connection and strange ambiguity. The subjects in his art are often made from layers of faces edited on top of one another – usually sourced from pictures of family and friends on his camera roll – so that they feel like somebody you know but also someone you don’t. Like the faces you see in dreams.

“It’s like creating a place where I’m distant but also close,” he says. 

Small moments throughout his life spark inspiration. His latest piece, of a cowering white goblin with a bleached-blonde mohawk (a photo which rapper Aminé commented, “nuts”) was created after sweeping through videos on Youtube and developing an interest in 80s euro punk and African noise rock. Recently, he came across a performer he describes as, “having white hair, broad shoulders and an energy I really felt.”

“That era was about being what you are and not what everyone expected you to be. It just triggered something positive for me,” he says.

“And then I found this movie about a gamer that gets tricked into committing murders. It’s this crazy 80s movie. But I think a lot of the imagery in that film captured a time in my life – obviously I wasn’t born back then, but I used to watch Nightmare on Elm Street and those really scary movies – that really reminded me of a fear that I had.”

Dorrey sits for a few seconds processing the meaning behind the image he’s created, thinking about the best way to put it into words. When he finally speaks he says that by amalgamating the two inspirations it created a personal message revolving around a fear of being who you are.

“You’re going to become that monster in somebody’s eyes. But because of what punk is, a lot of people were overcoming that.”

While some of his pieces come across as triumphant, child-like, fantastical, many others warp in faces of horror and unease, like a nightmare reflected back at you. But that’s the way Dorrey works: whatever’s happening in his mind, is portrayed back through his art.

“Whatever way it comes out, that makes sense for me. That's everything about art. You really get the opportunity to just document your experience. That does a lot for you, a lot for your psyche,” he says. 

While Dorrey comes across as humble (slightly stoned) and thoughtful, he laughs at the suggestion that his art did – and is – attracting the eye of great artists and designers in the pop culture arena. From the late Virgil Abloh, to consistent collaborator of Adidas, Kerwin Frost, to American Skater, William Strobeck. All names who have reached out to collaborate on various design projects.

“They were people I was supposed to work with on stuff. I worked with Kerwin and William [Strobeck]. I was supposed to work with Virgil. But I don’t know. I still feel the internet barrier,” he says.

“That’s the way I feel with big name interactions. I kind of keep to myself and oftentimes it feels like there’s a wall. ”

While I get the impression that the validation from big artists isn’t necessarily the main undercurrent to creating his art, Dorrey still says that he’s blessed in regards to the attraction to his work.

But like many young people entering back into a post-covid world, surrounded by newly-forged commitments, Dorrey says he’s entered a “weird rut”.

“It killed my momentum. Cause now I’m like “Where do I fit in? [laughs].”

“It’s just a process of figuring it out.” 

But this might be the period when  he’ll make some of his best pieces. He laughs at the suggestion, “Forreal.”

Instead: it’s like his Instagram bio says, “Things may feel like they have no meaning. An outlet could help you find a meaning!”

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