Dana Lynn Harper

“Through obsessive mark making I create new places to inhabit -- installations that lead the viewer to play and discover through experience. Stemming from reflections of my home life, predominantly relating to past and ongoing experiences with Asian diaspora my desire to make originates from a deep yearning to belong. Bright neon colors, reflective and holographic materials are inspired by childhood memories of toys, cartoons and fantasy. Through newly invented processes and the spirit of play there is a reclamation of childhood — a digging for joy through familiar materials and colors. Beneath the joy there is a wrangling for control, to fabricate my surroundings and to cocoon my existence in beautiful and soothing things. Pattern, boisterous color and playful textures provide comfort while production becomes a therapeutic act.

Collection and material exploration is the starting point of my work. I focus on and connect with the amusement found in color, reflective surfaces, texture and translucency. Through play and experimentation I create a system of loose rules that transform this material through a process I invent. There is a push and pull between freedom and restraint. Play exists between the rules of engagement for each work. There is a release of anxiety by making new work within the creative boundaries I establish. I bind myself to a process based in repetition to contain my restlessness and feed my obsession with accumulation. This process develops an original and organic pattern on a massive scale. Each work of art is a culmination of hundreds of repeated actions taken to a material, resulting in a delicate and cloud-like formation that has minimal structure or solidity. The modular construction enables installations to blend in with the environment around it, creating a fluid sense of immersion.”