Exploring instability & change in a range of materials.
Biography
A born and raised Minnesotan now living in Pennsylvania, Danielle Callahan appreciates adaptability. She earned a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus, with a concentration in painting and drawing. Mixed media work has always compelled her. Decades caring for infants and toddlers further informed her engagement with a variety of materials. Post graduation, Callahan initiated a foray into glass sculpture, then segued to wood fired ceramics thanks to a Jerome Foundation / St. John’s Pottery Fellowship. Danielle recently completed the ABCC, a program focused on contemporary conceptual ceramics created by A-B Projects.
Process appreciative sculptures, paintings & prints.
Curator & longtime friend Allyson Evans observes, “Danielle’s work with clay is rhythmic and simple, not fussy…(she) works with what happens, making purpose out of mishap in a beautiful way.”
Artist Statement
My work addresses this life of corporeality with appreciation, confusion and frustration. I voraciously study how things hold together and fall apart. How I’m held together and fall apart. Aging, weathering, time, place and impermanence are primary tools of my practice. I break, keep, wrap, alter, revisit and generally allow my work to change and be unstable.
Unfired clay feels especially apt when questioning the vulnerable or unpredictable, but I still find wood firing enthralling. Lumen prints (expired photo paper exposed varying lengths of time outside) currently intrigue me as documents to explore. I frequently utilize materials in my immediate environment -bricks, sticks, nails, wire, sidewalk cracks, rocks and tree bark. I paint, scrawl, poke and draw lines that connect and separate. Resultant cuts and gouges often read simultaneously scary and beautiful. Some work is made with a few fast gestures or quick impressions, other pieces evolve over the course of years. Expressions of repair, stress, mending, radiation, wonder…art is my expansive reservoir.
Work reflecting time & place.
