Daniel Listwan
Artist, educator, and arts administrator operating in South Florida since completing his MFA in Visual Studies from the University of Miami in 2013. Daniel has developed and exhibited his inter-disciplinary work while contributing to local museums, colleges, and art institutions in various roles. Applying his administrative experience and passion for the arts, Daniel is dedicated to impacting and enriching the wider community through collaboration, advocacy, and arts programming.
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Artist Statement:
Often overstimulated by the sensory barrage of the 21st century, I regularly delve inwards to the quiet spaces of the mind for balance. Meditative practices allow me to push past daily stimuli to a place where my mind can gain perspective and understanding and access creative energy flow. In this space I experience waves of unreal, unconscious imagery and fragments of incomplete and misrecollected memories that all merge into a visual experience. As a creative, I feel a compulsion to bring out and physically manifest these inner experiences and mysterious visions.
My work is expressed through a variety of physical and tactile media. Many materials I use have had a journey of their own and lend their history and associations to the work’s content. Burnt and broken frames collapse as structures that organize, twisted rebar snaps as a metaphorical connection, and minerals collect and disperse as matter in transition. The symbolism of the materials is as important to the content of each composition as the imagery itself.
Visually, the underlying element that represents my meditative experience is what I describe as static. This cosmic, achromatic, abstract field is the result of randomness and chance and is encouraged through combining graphite and other minerals in a fluid state. This static is the setting in which both physical materials and rendered imagery exist in my work. Altogether these elements create a surreal sense of place, mysterious context, and surreal associations between the familiar and the strange.
In using the deepest wells of my mind as the resource for my artwork, I am communicating and connecting with the viewer at the deepest level possible, sharing the specific and unique ways that my mind processes, deconstructs, and reconfigures my experiences.