Artist Statement
My paintings, originating from a place-based intuitive process, are visual stories that question the ways we deny, adore, and/or ignore the materials that define our lives and futures. I wrestle with my instinctual desire to paint within a world choked by landfills and excess. What does it mean to be a creator in a decaying world? What does it mean to seek aesthetic pleasure or audience approval in a world bombarded with products, images, and information? What does a painting mean against the dystopian backdrop that rests behind so many of our collective psyches? Can a painting throw a wrench in that narrative, and in the way we tell it? I search for the ways that a painting, and the process of painting, can digest conflicting notions and material realities. Can plastic exist alongside the sacred? Can plastic be sacred? Is it possible to hold the agony of decay alongside awe and adoration?
I search for the messy, gooey, toxic, lovely, unpredictable, and generative moments that arise when seemingly contradicting ideas exist in the same space. By combining an instinctual and abstract process with meticulous realism, I move between the somatic and technical, expressive and precise, and the felt and articulated. I experiment with opposites, in both the represented materials and the process itself. I begin the painting with a deep meditation on the textures, temperatures, colors and sensations of a landscape, and then each element of the piece builds on the other, allowing for an unpredictable conversation between expressionism and realism. I aim to open myself to a process that allows for instinctual and emotional mark making alongside a rigorous observation of specific items like rocks or plants. This allows for an openness to ideological, emotional, and material disruptions. I want to let contrast, confusion, love, fear, stagnation, motion, and different perspectives on the landscape to exist all together in order to create a metaphorical relationship between the way I paint and the way I’d like to think.
I create a final piece where materials that seem to oppose each other in texture and purpose, like clouds and plastic or bodies and rocks, interact and create an entangled story. I aim to propose that in our processes, ideologies, and physical creations, we can open ourselves to multiple truths, perspectives, and transformations, and ideally build deeper conversations about what it means to face the reality of our beautifully entangled existence alongside the horror of climate chaos.
Bio
Daisy Crane completed her Master’s in Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego in 2020 and has since focused on combining her background in peace studies with her art practice. Born in the middle of the country, in the middle of the family, and in the middle of two families with vastly different political and social views, Daisy has always jumped in and out of seemingly separate worlds. She grew up noticing the ways class, politics, lifestyles, and family structures can influence perspectives, which led to a fascination with observing cultures and social systems. Daisy’s peacebuilding and artwork have both focused on weaving worlds together across divides, non-linear narratives, transformation, empathy, healing, and ecological cosmologies. Daisy is particularly dedicated to painting specifically, as the practice allows for narratives that are not bound to language, rather they stem from intuitive knowledge and place-based inspiration. Her work explores the ways one can navigate in and out of analysis and feeling by emphasizing contrasting yet interconnected elements of realism, abstraction, and intuitive mark-making. She is interested in weaving perspectives together on the canvas, creating stories that oscillate between the felt and the represented. The final painting and painting process also allows for expansive, inclusive, and personalized audience experiences, which Daisy aims to foster during workshops, presentations, and lessons.
Daisy celebrates bewilderment and believes deeply in the power of intuitive practices. Daisy maintains an eco-friendly studio practice by using water-soluble, up-cycled, and non-toxic materials. Daisy earned her BA and BFA from the University of Kansas in 2018, she was the Program Evaluator for Imagine Center of Conflict Transformation in 2019, and she is a co-author of “Addressing the Environment-Peace Nexus,” Peace Review, 2021. Daisy is also a care provider and educator for k-12 kiddos, an avid forest-bather, and loves a good laugh.
CV
Education
2020 MA Peace and Justice, University of San Diego
2018 BFA Visual Arts, University of Kansas
2018 BA Humanities, Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Kansas
Solo Exhibitions
2018, Altered, Ardent, Afraid, University of Kansas Union Gallery, Lawrence, KS
Group Exhibitions
2023 Devastating Loves and Transcendent Hatreds, NCWCA sponsored regional juried exhibition, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Albany, CA (Jurors: Robert Abrams, Leah Andrews, Olive Hyde)
2023 Emerging Artists 2023, juried exhibition, Healdsburg Center for the Arts, Healdsburg, CA
2023 Art and Ecology, online juried exhibition, O’Hanlon Gallery, Mill Valley, CA (Juror: Obi Kaufmann)
2023 Made in California, juried exhibition, BREA Gallery, Brea, CA
2023 The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE, juried exhibition, Manhattan Arts International, (Juror: Renée Phillips)
2022 RESTART, juried exhibition, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA (Juror: Patricia Hickson)
2022 ECOSYSTEMS X, juried exhibition, Mozaik Philanthropy
2021 Culture Shifted, TUO TUO, Joutsa, Finland
2019 RAW Artists Group Show, Los Angeles, CA
2018 First Fridays February, Art Emergency, Lawrence, KS
2018 Temporary Exhibition, Nunemaker Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
2016 Floor Display, October Exhibition, Chalmers Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
2015-18 Annual Scholarship Shows, Chalmers Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Honors and Awards
2023 Special Recognition Award, Manhattan Art International, The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE (Juror: Renée Phillips)
2022 Honorable Mention Award, 3rd Portrait, Art Show International Gallery
2022 Special Mention Prize, Future Art Awards, ECOSYSTEMS X, Mozaik Philanthropy
2021 Competition Winner, All Figurative/Portrait Art Theme, Contemporary Art Gallery Online
Publications
2023 Special Recognition Art Award Winners, The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE, Manhattan Art International
2022 Pigeon Review, May 2022, Virtual Art and Literary Magazine
2021 Crane, Daisy. Cordero, Peyton. Tirrell, Andrew. “Addressing the Environment-Peace Nexus,” Peace Review
2017 Kiosk Magazine, 57th Edition, Pg. 35 & 36, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
2017 Sink Hollow, Pg. 16 & Cover, Utah State University, Logan, UT
2017 Is In the Air: A Guide to Youth, Sex, and Romance, Pg. 4, 5, 6 & 7, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Residencies
2021 TUO TUO, arts and ecology residency, Joutsa, Finland
2018 SFSIA, Art and Politics in the Age of Cognitive Capitalism, Los Angeles CA