Traditional art mediums were too rigid for local artist Dana Harper’s liking.
“I make art because it feels good. I make work inspired by my own experiences in hopes to connect with others,” Harper says. “I’ve always been a collector of materials, and I enjoy finding objects and transforming material through process. I like when there are no rules.”
She now enjoys working with a collection of unconventional materials: holographic vinyl, translucent window films, glass beads, fuzzy yarn.
Harper attended The Ohio State University and majored in fine arts and technology. She went on to graduate from Penn State University to receive her master’s degree in fine arts and sculpture.
“I learned to work with different materials, to push ideas in terms of scale and process. It was also in graduate school where I was first inspired to make installations,” she says. “After school, I felt more prepared to take risks. I had a firmer grasp on the idea that I was going to make this career up as I went along."
Residencies and grant funding from organizations such as the Greater Columbus
Arts Council allowed her to work with institutions such as the Columbus Museum of Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts to make public works of art.
“I think the most important thing for me is to spend as much time in the studio as I can, as well as continue to honestly examine why I make the work I make,” she says.
Art enthusiasts may know Harper for her graduate thesis, Bloom Bloom.
“(It) has become a sanctuary to me,” she says. “I discovered the flagging tape material on a walk to school, plucking it from construction sites and taking it into the studio with me. I tied it to another common construction material, chicken wire, which created a thick neon texture. ... The panels of covered chicken wire were flipped upside down and hung from the ceiling. As the work developed, I wanted to create a large enough space to hold 20 to 30 people at one time.”
Harper is now working on a series called Oblivion Discs. She uses a circuit cutter to cut tiny circles of holographic and iridescent vinyl.
“The center of the disc is one color and the edges are another. Between the center and the edge, the colors create a shift or gradient,” she says “I enjoy the space in between – the time of transformation or shift from one being to the next. This happens as one material mutates into a new texture or form.”
Harper will host a virtual workshop, organized by the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery, on March 13. Participants will source found materials to create “wishing talismans.”
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Brandon Klein is an associate editor. Feedback welcome at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com.
