OuvertureMarc Selwyn: Your approach toward the characters you have created seems to diverge from that of other artists who work with similar cartoon-based imagery such as Jeff Koons or Julia Wachtel. You seem to have a real affection for these characters.
Daniel Oates: I thinktheir work tends to be more critical. I'm not sarcastic in the imagery that I'm using. I enjoy making the characters. I wasn't developing a strategy, and I think the characters reflect that. My motivation was not to make art per se.
MS: You draw your imagery from banal, everyday sources, society's lowest common denominator. Is that a rejection of artistic elitism?
DO: I want to keep these figures as accessible as possible, and I want them to be seductive. I'm interested in the way advertising works. A lot of my images come from that kind of source, like the new Camel cigarette ads fro example. I'm looking at stylized imagery which doesn't have much bearing on reality. It seduces you yet you are not aware of it. It's something you just accept. You're not sure why you like it. My characters are images that people don't quite trust. People will be suspicious.
MS: The handmade quality of your work defies our expectations. At first glance, it appears to be an object of mass production, a children's toy, for example. When we become aware of the process behind it, it becomes much more personal, more human.
DO: The realization that it is handmade is part of its seduction. But a child can still attach emotion to something that comes off a production line.
MS: In your works, these working class people always seem to be happy with their lot. The postman is smiling...
DO: I'm not saying working class people are completely content with what they've been given. But work gives an identity to a person. "I'm a postman" defines who that person is, it defines his place. Without that, people lack some sort of motivation. Everybody works to live, but everybody also lives to work.
Flash Art
November 12, 1993 
From Myths to Reality
