I am an American-German-Colombian artist with parents who were first generation immigrants. I grew up between my American born culture and those of my parents. As my peers and I were coming of age, our story evolved into the Gen X’ers, the middle child who had the quintessential feeling of being lost and filled with anxiety. At a young age I found solace in making, and art became a way of life.
In undergraduate school, at DePaul University, I was trained in mural painting techniques. As a student I executed two public murals for the University. After graduation I was employed with the Chicago Artist Coalition, where I worked on several projects. The experience of mural painting shaped my future work in that large scale-painting and its engagement with the physicality of the body has remained important.
After graduating in 1997, I spent three months living with my extended family in Uruguay, South America. My Uruguayan Aunt, who is also an artist, has a studio in her backyard. I spent everyday making art with her when I wasn’t working alone. I also went and worked in an a collective artist studio that included discussions of art. It was through this experience that my love for Pre-Columbian art came to fruition.
In 1998 I went on to pursue my Masters which I received at the University of Washington in Seattle. That program turned my concept of art upside down. I began to empty narrative and embrace abstraction. The change was organic and occurred concurrently with my inquiry into Eastern Philosophy. Specifically, I discovered how by dropping the storyline, and allowing the materials to manifest meaning, I was able to drop the stressful stories we tell ourselves. In doing so, I was able to replace old paradigms that artists need to suffer to make good art, with a sense of ease and intentionality.
In 2013 I became a mother and in 2015, a parent of two. In order to maintain my practice, we moved to be near my parents who live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I now work in my earth color / earth fiber studio. While raising two young children and working as full time artist has had its challenges, those challenges are the ones that have shaped my work to focus on the integration of art + life, and creating work to make visible the invisibility of women’s labor.
My process since having children has shifted from oil painting to natural dyes and fabrics. Foraging and collecting plants and other raw materials, I am dying and staining mulberry paper and cotton canvas with botanical colors. Exposing the processed materials to natural elements, I imbue them with the marks of weather, time, and a sense of place. Using household tools such as stovetop burners, washing machines, and irons, I add marks of domesticity to the texture of the work. Cutting, tearing and piecing together fragments of paper and canvas, I mend the surfaces back together, giving it a feeling of patchwork. Together, the results of these processes evoke a connection to its making revealing non-aggression, authenticity, slowing down, equanimity and beauty. If these ideas resonate with your own life pursuit, I believe you will connect with my work.
I invite you to visit links on my website to discover my life in art. Would you like to be part of my journey by becoming one of my collectors? If you would like to learn more about my art and how you can become a collector please click here to subscribe and receive information. Living with art is one of the most nurturing and grounding gifts we can give ourselves and others.
Sincerely yours,
Danila