Working late in the studio finishing these new panels in preparation for my show Beyond Fiction opening Saturday, October 21st at Oggi Chicago, a brand-new gallery and community art space at 2541 South Oakley Avenue. It's part of the 18th Street Pilsen Open Studios tours.
I am continuing my Animal Series with new portraits of animals imagined as pop icons, famous dignitaries, classic paintings, historical figures and fictional characters.
I wanted to share about my process but don't have the time to write, so I'm letting my friend and fellow artist/inventor Ana Jeftenic use her voice to document her observations and insights. Hope to see you at the opening this weekend!
o o o
Danya isn't afraid of puns or pretty much anything.
She's in your face, but her paintings are patiently gilded, literally, with gold leaf. How can something so lovely and delicate come from such a fierce woman?
The ongoing Animal Series expands her comical pun-loving gallery of characters. With gems like "Grrrl with a Pearl Earring," "Napoleon Bone Apart" and "Uncle Slam," I can't help but be drawn in by the joke. She cracks me up, and then I linger to see what she has to say with exquisite drawing and color.
The painting is fresh, not labored, in spite of the countless hours in a small surface area. I watch her move her thin brush, flying over the palette and back to the panel, like a nervous bird pecking at seeds and then finding a fat worm, just beneath the grass.
She tilts her head up then down, finding the right focus behind her wire rimmed glasses. She pulls back to look, judges it worthy, and moves on to add another layer of rich red to the jacket of the stylish hare in "Fashionably Late."
The drone of the fan and the deep notes of cello music from Rufus Cappadocia pull her deeper into her process like the noise of the tides. The trains grinding past the studio windows on West Lake Street don't phase her. She's an expert in the meditation of painting, even if she would disagree. She gets there, into the trance, sometimes swearing under her breath when the brush misbehaves, but moving past the mistakes and making them work.
My friend has the focus of an ancient Illuminator gilding an intricate manuscript. But here, she is writing her own stories and commenting on our culture with her smart, irreverent sense of humor.
Ana Jeftenic
In progress
Finishing "Fashionably Late."