Dana Newmann and Dana Hart-Stone: A State of Newness
Dana Newmann and Dana Hart-Stone:
A State of Newness
March 4 - April 1, 2023
Artists in Conversation with Art Critic and Historian William Peterson
Saturday, March 4 at 3:30 pm
Followed by a Reception for the Artists from 4:30 to 6 pm
Dana Newmann, The Dada Cabinet, 2023, Cabinet of Curiosity, 23 x 42 x 11.5 in.
Dana Hart-Stone, Dear Friend Lola, 75 in., UV cured acrylic ink on canvas
Pie Projects was pleased to announce the opening of Dana Hart-Stone and Dana Newmann: A State of Newness, on Saturday, March 4, 2023 with an Artists' Conversation with Art Critic and Historian William Peterson Saturday, March 4 at 3:30 pm, followed by a Reception for the Artists from 4:30 to 6 pm. The exhibition was on view until April 1, 2023.
The two-person exhibition will featured the works by Bay Area artist Dana Hart-Stone and Santa Fe artist Dana Newmann. Both artists are inveterate collectors of mementoes from the past, such as vintage photographs and antique finds. These rescued treasures inspire new possibilities ingeniously expressed through their art. In many ways, Hart-Stone and Newmann's works epitomize Baudelaire's words from The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays:
"[The great artist is one] who is never for a moment without the genius of childhood — a genius for which no aspect of life has become stale (...) The child sees everything in a state of newness; he is always drunk. Nothing more resembles what we call inspiration than the delight with which a small child absorbs form and color."
Inspired by his childhood growing up in the badlands of eastern Montana, Dana Hart-Stone investigates themes such as friendship, community, and the passing of time, and invites the viewer to explore the developing American identity of earlier years. He builds compositions of tinted vernacular photos from his vast collection of vintage images spanning many years, from the mid-19th through 20th centuries. His paintings are comprised of digitally stitched collages that create fields of memory. They pay homage to the personal histories of "everyday people," while simultaneously recalling the collective history of the American West. The title painting Dear Friend Lola, a 6-foot round canvas, suggests a Busby Berkeley kaleidoscopic storytelling of a lovesick cowboy, that includes a mysterious African American cowboy on a purple horse and a smiling cowgirl guitar player. Other compositions display bands of repetitive imagery that create the feeling of a cinematic narrative while simultaneously dissolving into abstract patterns of saturated color.
Dana Newmann has been described as one of New Mexico’s cultural treasures. Her signature work in the exhibition is the Dada Cabinet. Newmann has made several boxes of this sort over the years. They are inspired by “Cabinets of Curiosities” or "Wunderkammern" that first appeared in the homes of royalty and the aristocratic in 16th century Europe. Such "cabinets of wonders" were eclectic collections of natural wonders and human artifacts and were precursors of our museums. Her Dada Cabinet is a well-versed and witty tribute to the masters of Dadaism, the literary and artistic movement that developed between 1916 and 1922 in reaction to the horrors of World War I. Also presented in the exhibition is a selection of Newmann's collages, assemblages, and sculptures displaying a delightful array of collected materials, from Victorian cabinets cards to antiques domino and monopoly pieces.
Dana Newmann, Terra Incognita III, 2023, vintage photos (paper, acetate, negatives) on hand-made Nepalese paper, 16.5 x 21 in.
Dana Hart-Stone, The Life And Times Of Plaid, 2019, UV cured acrylic ink on canvas, 72 x 158 in.