Dana Oldfather, May 2010
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
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Dana Oldfather was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1978. She is a self taught oil painter who has been in exhibitions in galleries and museums across the country, including POV Evolving Gallery in LA, and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown. Oldfather is the newest featured artist at Ink Dish out of San Diego, CA. She was granted the Summer 2009 grant from Working Artist Org and 2nd place in the 2008, 9th Annual National Young Painters Competition by renowned New York painter and art critic Peter Plagens at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Oldfather is currently represented at The Bonfoey Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, EO Art Lab in Chester, Connecticut, and now has work with Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Chelsea, New York. Dana Oldfather is proud to be included in corporate collections such as the prestigious Progressive Art Collection and the Cleveland Artist Foundation. Some of her biggest art influences and favorite artists are Willem DeKooning, Reed Danziger, and Jennifer Coates. Oldfather currently lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dana’s painting, “Night Wait,” graces the cover of the Fall 2009 (7.1) issue of Redivider.
Artist Statement: A complete and fulfilled life can be wracked with insecurity. A child can be innocent and silly one moment and entirely serious the next. It is our reality that we do not function with singular absolute emotions. Society, however celebrates these absolutes in individuals. This false importance leads me in my desire to express the beauty of contrasts. My interest is to demonstrate the hard and soft parts of ourselves, whereby I regard the contradiction as one idea, one complete emotion, rather than two. It is the resolution of opposites into a singular new identity, complete in itself, that is important.
These abstractions celebrate motion and borrow from past movements. With a focus on youth, identity, and consumption, and by employing contrasting graphic, expressive, and magnified pointillist elements, I attempt to illustrate the impact of natural emotional contradiction. Part landscape and part parade, images float and jig about the picture plain. In art I have always tried to connect to the world through beauty. Each work is an attempt to elegantly express the embodiment of paradox; a physical manifestation of conflicting desires communicated in an abstract arrangement of forms.
Other artwork:
Exhibition at William Rupnik Gallery in Cleveland
Work at Kathryn Markel Fine Art in Chelsea
Prints at Little Paper Planes, San Fran
Blurb on Beautiful/Decay
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I’ve Never Been One to Wait
An Interview by Art Editor Anne Vickman
Redivider: You were born in raised in Cleveland, OH, right? What is the art scene like there?
Dana Oldfather: Yes that’s right. The art scene here is conservative but vibrant. Like most cities, it’s the trend that galleries carry mostly regional artists. There are a bunch of great corporate art collections headquartered here such as Progressive Insurance and The Cleveland Clinic. There are also plenty of private buyers too. The Ohio Arts Council does a great job of funding individual artists with the Individual Excellence Award and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland’s County) awards Individual Artist Fellowships specifically for artists that live here. There are a lot of wonderful opportunities for artists in such a small city.
RDR: What sort of atmosphere do you create for yourself while you’re painting?
DO: Bright studio with wood floors. I try to only work in the daytime. Sometimes music, sometimes Radio Lab or Wait Wait, sometimes quiet. Tank top, jeans and slippers.
RDR: What gets the creative process started for you when it comes to creating a new piece of art?
DO: Unfortunately, my answer to this question isn’t very romantic. I’ve never been one to wait for the lightning bolt of inspiration to make art. I sit down and draw. I don’t let myself move from the studio until the work day is over, even if I only come up with two little marks, I sit and stare at the sketchbook page and think. This process can be problematic since unless an artist produces or shows work, people don’t think they’re doing anything, when actually, a big part of the job is spending time in one’s own head.
RDR: How would you describe your own style of painting?
DO: I guess I would say that it’s a mix of expressive and graphic styles celebrating contrast and vitality.
RDR: What is one of the most challenging aspects of being an artist?
DO: Maintaining your drive and determination in the face of rejection. That, and being poor. 
RDR: What are you working on now? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions?
RDR: What’s the shortest and longest amount of time you’ve spent on any one piece?
DO: This new work takes about 40-50 hours for a medium sized piece (30 x 30 inches). Each painting starts with a drawing. There is one solid-colored base coat, two-four expressionistic paint layers, lots and lots of hand painted circles (roughly 4 layers), abstracted kites, and lastly some drawn elements. Back when I was working purely expressionistically (2007) I think I once finished a painting in 6 hours.
RDR: Last question. Your artist statement starts off with the statement, “A complete and fulfilled life can be wracked with insecurity.” I love that you keep the practice of being human in perspective. How does insecurity affect you as an artist?
DO: Rejection is hard. Putting an idea out into the world that
1. Comes from the deep, dark, depths of your insides and
2. Is something that you’ve thought about and worked to visually express for almost a decade
can be trying and, quite frankly, emotionally exhausting. Visual art is so very subjective. It can get hard to keep that in mind when going for a gallery or show that you think you’re a shoe in for. I think most artists are at least a little bit insecure about their work if they’re being honest with themselves.
3/1/2010
