American b. Boston, 1961
Lives and works in Pinyon Pines, CA
X’s work explores the complexities of individual experience particularly in relation to home, isolation and memory. Her depictions of the human form are marked with an intensity and intimacy—simultaneously vulnerable and powerful, naked in their truth, with souls laid bare. Emotional complexity emanates from the aura of tonal layering, where paint appears not so much brushed as breathed onto the surface. In Outside of the Binary X seeks to expand the narrative of gender beyond traditional societal norms, drawing on the history of painting and conventions of portraiture to explore fluidity and identity. In the span of a few generations, gender-diverse people have moved from the shadows of social stigma into the center of public debate, cultural imagination, and political struggle. The story is not linear—it is a tangle of breakthroughs and backlash, resilience and resistance.
Walt Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” This theme manifests throughout the work of Dakota X, a contemporary painter who conveys the essence inherent within marginalized communities on the fringes of American society. Stark and unflinching, her paintings resist romanticizing hardship, instead revealing how environments themselves become witnesses—holding the weight of displacement, poverty, and exclusion. Nowhere is this more present than in her desert landscapes. The desert is not empty; it is alive with histories, silences, and the enduring strength of those who inhabit its edges. In horizons that feel both infinite and confining, her work uncovers a quiet strength: the dignity of survival, the persistence of identity, and the possibility of home in even the most overlooked spaces.
Dakota X lives and works in the rural community of Pinyon Pines, CA, 100 miles outside of Downtown, Los Angeles. Born in Boston, 1961, X studied Painting and Art Education at the Museum School of Fine Art, Boston and Tufts University. She holds a BFA in Fine Art and a BS Masters of Arts in Teaching, Art Education respectively. X is a recipient of the Orlowsky Freed Foundation Grant sponsored in part by PAAM (2011) and a finalist in the shortlist of seventy for the 2018 BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London. Her work is included in the permanent collection of The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), Provincetown, MA.
Work by Dakota X has been exhibited nationally at The New Museum Los Gatos, Los Gatos, CA; The Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; The Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover, DE; The Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA, The Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA; The Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA; LAUNCH LA, Los Angeles, CA; Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA; Marks Art Center, College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA; Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA; William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art, California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sam Francis Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Billis Williams Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and MM Fine Art, South Hampton, NY.
X’s work has been featured in publications including Juxtapoz Magazine; Palm Springs Life Magazine ARTS+CULTURE; art ltd.; Angeleno Magazine; Art and Cake; FABRIK Magazine; AEQAI Magazine; New American Paintings Magazine, The Provincetown Independent; Provincetown Magazine, The Provincetown Banner; and Provincetown Arts among others.
