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"Profoundly Playful" blends reality and fantasy with narrative, satire, burlesque, psychology and “a super charged palette that is like a party about to get thoroughly out of control”. Every part is a series of actions and reactions. She places virgin canvas underneath the “in-process” painting on her easel, and ‘collects’ the excess paint that is flung, splattered, scraped, spilled and off loaded. Just like the canvas before it, the floor work is then raised to eye level. From the aggregation of Rorschach-like blots of primordial color, a fresh composition and a new group of figurative characters emerge. Their shape serves as stimulus for free association – almost any irregular free shape can spark off the associative process. This is a central part of her creative process, giving life to a cast of characters, each exhibiting the vitality of their individual freedom, each one leading to another – creating, conceptually, a visual display of memories sourced from the subconscious. In addition to this auto-associative memory process, Dana often assimilates ideas or phrases from things people say or from books on audio that she listens to while working. She says: “My process mirrors the way in which we learn, we cannot ultimately control how information finds us or how we process it. Therefore, I regard chance as the organizing principle employed in constructing each painting. In response to the chance convergence of memories, thoughts, sounds, emotions, and other stimuli, I attempt to control the uncontrollable through a narrative, layered with numerous subplots, that is personal, implied and universal. My work is my poetic theater of uncertainty, popular culture, universal truths, personal experiences and the modern condition. The viewer can partake in a stable set of meanings or challenge the imagery with their own sense of wonder.” “Order + Collapse” is a very new work in progress, and has not yet been seen in public. She'll be sharing it with us for the first time. *** Dana recently published a hardcover large format 102 page book about "Profoundly Playful", which she'll be talking about Tuesday night. Bruce Helander had this to say about the book: “Donaty’s new series effortlessly connects with her past work by retaining the delightful common denominator of slapstick humor in unlikely possibilities, including a never-ending barrage of characters born of impossible imagination and circumstances. It doesn’t hurt that this gifted artist has a special knack for inventing oddball scenarios that are heightened by superior picture-making… In all of Donaty’s carefully articulated works, her audience can sense a true love of articulating paint medium combined with a love and fascination for creating abstracted characters that are unique and certainly memorable. These works suggest a rare talent and an artist who truly is having a wonderful time that ends each day, no doubt, with an engaging smile of satisfaction and accomplishment.” Dana grew up in New Jersey, in a family with mixed Colombian, Peruvian, Italian, Irish and American backgrounds. She has a BA in Drawing from Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, PA. After living in London for twelve years, she relocated to Florida in 2006, where she now lives and works in Miami and Delray Beach. Since 2014, she has been an Artist-in-Residence at Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami. Dana will be having a solo exhibition at The Cornell Museum of Art in Delray Beach, opening Dec 5. Her work was recently on view in a solo retrospective exhibition at Coral Springs Museum of Art, Coral Springs, FL. and has been shown at international art fairs like Art Palm Beach, Art Boca Raton, the American International Fine Art Fair, Scope and major group shows throughout Florida. Other selected solo shows include Fordistas Gallery in Miami, Paul Fisher Gallery in Palm Beach and The Ora Sorensen Gallery in Palm Beach. Her work is in both public and private collections in the US, and Europe. She has completed many award winning public art projects, and has been featured in over 50 national and international publications. She has garnered multiple awards within the design industry, as she has been sought after to create unique commissions for high profile residential and commercial projects. DANA DONATY'S WEB SITE |