SEA, SKY, AND SPACESCAPES BY DANA JAMES

In her most recent suite of mixed media paintings, Dana James employs alluringly deliquescent strata of oils, inks, dyes, encaustic and pigments in the creation of landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes and spacescapes that whisk you away into the turbid beyonds of ambiguously horizoned, chromatically enchanted elsewheres. — Paul D'Agostino 

Looking to dive into dreamy palettes and continuous deep thought? Look no further. Sound waves, water and light are all essences that reverberate through time in James' latest body of work. The pieces pertain to a drifting history that merges with the otherworldly, where we float in between catharsis and danger, between peace and abandonment, and between fear and diving in.  

It is the coalescence between the mundane and the metaphysical that interests me, the idea that the super natural is the only natural.  — Dana James 

James works employs the process of pouring for its accidents and its autonomy, in order to depict the purity of water quite literally, by using it as her primary medium, in combination with glowing iridescents, wax surfaces, dyes and pigments. 

The water forces me to relinquish control, and I enjoy this struggle, since the image at the end — like all life experience — is a compromise between the artist and the medium. I believe our deepest memories take place in and around water, making it the most natural process to birth an evocative and precarious image. I hope to seize a space in time that is as much absent as it is present. — Dana James 

Dana James is a painter currently working in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A New York City native from Tribeca, she is born under a long line of artists and has been creating from a very young age.  James has already earned her place as a prominent figure among Bushwick's latest wave of up-and-coming artists. She debuted her work after graduating SVA in 2008, quickly carving out a niche for herself within the bustling local art scene. She was the founder and spearhead of Elgin Gallery and has served as Associate Director at Bushwick's Life on Mars Gallery. But today James' career is making art, and her list of achievements continues to grow.  Exhibiting her own work full time, she has exhibited in extensive exhibitions both in and out of New York. 

She recently closed a solo show titled "Sometimes Seen Dreams" at the Lodge Gallery in the Lower East Side, NY, and is preparing for her next solo show at David & Schweitzer Contemporary in Bushwick, Brooklyn next fall. This spring, you can find her works in Cape Town, South Africa on view at Silence is Accurate Gallery, a new space dedicated to merging local artists with New York based artists. Lastly, her paintings will be featured in the upcoming feature film EGG.

It is the coalescence between the mundane and the metaphysical that interests me, the idea that the super natural is the only natural.  — Dana James

You can find her work on www.danajames.info and at @mizjames on Instagram