Dana Oldfather "Sweet, Sweet, Sweet" New Paintings

Oldfather states "By choosing when to show gravity, perspective, atmosphere, and light, I create impossible object/environments and emote through them. The raw energy of my need to make decisions and create outside motherhood, charges the images with urgency. I propose a multidimensional diagram of anxiety and the desire to overcome it. The paintings allow me to transform my feelings of dread and insecurity into something physical, tangible, and beautiful; a bittersweet beauty that is brightened by the shadow it casts.  I am trying to come to terms with the belief that this is the best of all possible worlds; the possibility that beauty's fullest potential is achieved by coming through darkness.  Silky ink stains, oozy acrylic pours, and airy swaths of spray paint float as brushstrokes of oil paint in varying weight nest and knot across an ambiguous horizon. A squishy body attempts to protect itself with a labyrinth of piping that underpins and armors it.  A repetitive alignment of struts or bones elicits sound at a specific tempo. The paintings live, breathe, and beat."

Dana Oldfather is a Cleveland artist that has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, including The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, SPACES and the MoCA in Cleveland.  Oldfather has received the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, a Visual Artist Residency to The Vermont Studio Center, and a William and Dorothy Yeck Award for Young Painters.  Her painting are in several collections including The Cleveland Clinic, The Progressive Art Collection, Pizzuti Collection and Jones Day.