Dana James: Something I Meant to Say by Hollis Taggart

DANA JAMES

DANA JAMES JAME SOMETHING I MEANT TO SAY JUNE 3–JULY 2, 2021 ESSAY BY JASON STOPA

H O L L I S TAG GA R T 521 West 26th Street, 1st Floor New York, NY 10001

IT WAS HAPPENCHANCE when I first encountered Dana James’s paintings. On my way to see another exhibition in Bushwick, Brooklyn, I noticed James’s work featured alongside her mother, Lizbeth Mitty, in their 2019 joint exhibition The Thread at M. David & Co. Gallery. I was immediately drawn in by a large diptych, with an eye-catching iridescent surface and noted her ability to create impressive, intricate abstract paintings. James’s carefully-placed, vivid markings captivate her viewers and hit all the correct visual notes. Moreover, her nuanced use of encaustic produced glowing, semi-translucent colors which revealed her inventiveness with unusual materials. A visit to James’s studio only deepened my excitement about working with her. Shortly after, her work was featured in Breaking the Frame, the inaugural exhibition at Hollis Taggart Contemporary, where it received great accolades and support from the community. A second-generation artist from New York, James is ambitious and determined—qualities that resonate with my experiences as a second-generation art dealer.

the indelible. James’s diaphanous colors are constantly changing depending on the quality of light at different times of day. Her recent paintings also incorporate flecks of foil, along with encaustic, as a means to create surprising glimmers of light embedded within opaque color fields. James is always engaging the viewer with something new to see. I am grateful to Dana for the opportunity to collaborate on this stunning exhibition and thankful for the dedication of the entire gallery staff in bringing this project together. PAUL EFSTATHIOU

In her first solo exhibition with Hollis Taggart Gallery, Something I Meant to Say, James continues pushing, exploring, and expanding her technique. This current body of work examines the tension between dualities such as light and dark and the impermanent versus

FOREWORD 7

DANA JAMES MAKES PAINTINGS that feel like daydreams. Of course there is an app for this now. In 2016, Google launched Google Daydream. The app is now defunct, but at the time, users could purchase a headset that resembles a pair of binoculars, sync to an iPhone, and then discover “famous museums, far away cities, distant planets and beyond.” So much for self-induced stream of consciousness or simply zoning out at work. James appears more interested in the analog than digital possibilities of daydreaming, however. The abstract painter is most concerned with the sense of touch. She uses a variety of materials to produce texture: poured paint, dark charcoal, iridescent color fields, encaustic, ink, incidental marks, and even collaged strips of canvas to create highly charged, quasi-abstract landscapes. In a year marked by crisis and solitude, the desire to detach and dream is alive in all of us. James’s paintings make use of raw canvas, an aesthetic employed by contemporary artists as diverse as Rose Wylie and Joe Bradley. For the many artists on Instagram with large followings the format has become a kind of easy signifier for contemporaneity. The equation seems to be raw canvas + expressionistic mark making + hints of bright color = a modern, abstract painting. The math only works for a handful of painters. In the case of Bradley, the audience is inclined to believe it. The overlapping colors and bold shapes, the rough handling of paint and oil stick create a convincing image that feels rudimentary, even if at times, a bit macho. Wylie’s

JASON STOPA

DAYDREAM NATION 6

large paintings contain oversized figures, painted phrases with poetic punch, and cartoon-like images of women, cats, and skulls. There is a girlish wit to her works as she references films, everyday life, and even advertising. James’s paintings split the difference with mark making that embraces sensuality, play, and assertiveness in the same breadth. Some paintings depict natural elements like ocean waves as both color and content. The artist isn’t shy about addressing big themes like innocence, memory, and even loaded terms like beauty. In the nearly 2000 years that people have argued about whether or not beauty is subjective or objective, the matter was largely considered be done and over when Hume and Kant both agreed that beauty is subjective. And with that, so much artwork of the twentieth century made an effort to distance itself from the very idea, seeing it as wrapped up in issues of the male gaze or simply irrelevant to discourse. Yet, the issue has experienced something of a revival in the last few decades, with writers like Crispin Sartwell weighing-in with his book Six Names of Beauty (2004). In his text, Sartwell attributes beauty neither exclusively to the subject nor to the object, but to the relation between them, and even more widely also to the situation or environment in which they are both embedded. He points out that when we attribute beauty to the night sky, for instance, we do not take ourselves simply to be reporting a state of

pleasure in ourselves; we are turned outward toward it; we are celebrating the real world. On the other hand, if there were no perceivers capable of experiencing such things, there would be no beauty.1 Many of James’s painting titles reference night skies, opera singers, and gardens; few can deny the powerful symbolism associated with such imagery. Some paintings rely heavily on architecture and framing devices to deliver an emotional impact. In works like The Opera Singer (2021, p. 27), one can almost make out a shallow stage and proscenium with pale blue, cream, and baby pink curtains. Other works like Derelict, (2021; p. 23) shine with confident relationships between repetition, geometry, and expressive handling. This pale pink diptych features two small, irregular rectangles at the bottom that mirror the larger pink expanses. The top right corner contains a raw canvas rectangle painted with cadmium red stains and gestures. Recycling older paintings as cut-out areas in new paintings lends her work an autobiographical quality and introduces a narrative relationship to what can otherwise be read as aesthetic. The most obvious antecedent for Dana James is Helen Frankenthaler, one of the more enduring Post-war painters who charted a path between abstraction and landscape painting. The other, lesser-known influence is Antoni Tàpies, the Spanish Surrealist turned

Abstract Expressionist whose paintings are characterized by thick impasto and calligraphic mark-making. James doesn’t wear her history on her sleeve. Her work is neither as celebratory as Frankenthaler’s nor as provisional as Tàpies’s. Her color reflects distinct internal states; sometimes a bit moody, sometimes ecstatic. The effect is closer to somewhere in the middle, in that murky, yet honest, middle ground. Perhaps this is what makes them contemporary. The artist, having digested her influences, creates paintings that are more idiosyncratic, opting for a process that leans into contradiction. James is a painter of two minds: one half wants to paint late afternoon light pouring in from a bedroom window, another wants to paint it black. Note 1. “Beauty,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, winter 2017 edition, edited by Edward N. Zalta, plato. stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/beauty/.

Jason Stopa is a painter and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA from Indiana University and his MFA from Pratt Institute. He writes for Momus, Hyperallergic, and The Brooklyn Rail. Stopa teaches at the Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts and works for an academic journal at Columbia University.

LILLY OF THE NILE, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, PIGMENT, AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 74 × 86 INCHES (188 × 218.4 CM) (TRIPTYCH) 11

DELPHINE, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, AND PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 16 × 12 INCHES (40.6 × 30.5 CM) 12

HONEY POT, 2021 OIL AND ENCAUSTIC ON LINEN, 30 × 16 INCHES (76.2 × 40.6 CM) 13

THE SWIMMER II, 2021 ACRYLIC, COLLAGE, FOIL, AND PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 30 × 30 INCHES (76.2 × 76.2 CM) 15

WIDOW’S PEAK, 2021 OIL, PIGMENT, ENCAUSTIC, ACRYLIC, AND FOIL ON CANVAS, 46 × 68 INCHES (116.8 × 172.7 CM) 17

THE FERAL EMPRESS, 2021 OIL, ACRYLIC, PIGMENT, COLLAGE, AND ENCAUSTIC ON CANVAS, 42 × 36 INCHES (106.7 × 91.4 CM) 19

LOVE AND BRUISES, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, AND INK ON CANVAS, 16 × 12 INCHES (40.6 × 30.5 CM) 20

THE WESTERN, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, AND PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 36 × 30 INCHES (91.4 × 76.2 CM) 21

DERELICT, 2021 OIL, ACRYLIC, AND PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 40 × 50 INCHES (101.6 × 127 CM) (DIPTYCH) 23

HOMECOMING, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, PIGMENT, INK, AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 36 × 60 INCHES (91.4 × 152.4 CM) 25

THE OPERA SINGER, 2021 OIL, ENCAUSTIC, AND PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 42 × 36 INCHES (106.7 × 91.4 CM) 27

DANA JAMES (b. 1986) is a painter and New York native now residing in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She creates works with an exquisite sense of touch, incorporating multiple mediums and textures by the process of pouring and mark making. Her iridescent markings relate to scarring, but at the same time these flickering surfaces evoke the play of moonlight or the filament of a dragonfly’s wing, transient images that are symbols of change. James’s work explores beautiful, captivating dualities—transience and perwmanence, geometric and amorphous, dirty and clean, light and dark, the contradictions of femininity, and the dichotomies of human experience. She draws on wide ranging themes all the while referencing the great American tradition

BIOGRAPHY 28

of Color Field Painting, creating a fresh language all her own. Since graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 2008, James’s work has been exhibited extensively and can be found in multiple private and public collections in New York City and beyond. James was recently listed in the Top 20 Artists Shaping the New Decade by the

Daily Collector. Sometimes Seen Dreams was featured in the Art Critical Review Panel, and her two-person show, The Thread, was chosen as a “must-seen” by New York Magazine. She has also been featured in publications such as Two Coats of Paint, ArtSpace, and Hyperallergic.

BIOGRAPHY

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1986 Born in New York City

2021 Contemporary Women Paint: Abstract Expressions, Moberg Gallery, Des Moines, IA

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY EDUCATION 2005–08 B.F.A., School of Visual Arts, New York 2004–05 Emerson College, Boston, MA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2021 Something I Meant to Say, Hollis Taggart, New York 2020 Otherwise All Was Silent, Bode Projects Berlin 2017 Sometimes Seen Dreams, The Lodge Gallery, New York 2016 Surface Tension, Urban Gallery, Philadelphia 2015 Patterns in Nature, JAG Modern, Philadelphia 2014 As by Sinking, Attic Studios Gallery, Long Island City, NY 2013 Every Night at Midnight, Envoy Enterprises, New York 2010 Lungs, Union Gallery, New York

Making the Future, David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY Reality Is Wrong, Dreams are for Real, David & Schweitzer Annex, Brooklyn, NY

2020 Sound & Color, SugarLift with the High Line Nine, New York

The Project Room, David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY

Look Again: A Survey of Contemporary Painting, Hollis Taggart, Southport, CT

Forever Thens, Brock University, Ontario, Canada

Refract Mere, Marquee Projects, Belport, NY

Treading Urban Water, Fiercely Curious at the Crosby House, New York

Taggart Times 7, Hollis Taggart Contemporary, New York 2018–19 The Thread, David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY

Breaking the Frame, Hollis Taggart Contemporary, New York

Focus, Blam Projects, Brooklyn, NY

Jardin, No. 4 Studio, Brooklyn NY Technology as Hands, Fiercely Curious, Sky Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Jumping the Shark, Royal Society of American Art, Brooklyn, NY

Cue Art Benefit, Rogue Space, New York

We Are What the Seas Have Made Us, Proto Gallery, Hoboken, NJ

Kicking Abstract & Taking Names, Moberg Gallery, Des Moines, IA

Thrice Legendary or Forever Thens, Centotto Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2020 Vision, KBFA, Larchmont, NY

Forever Now: You Deserve Better, Back Drop Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Thrive, Inaugural Exhibition, KBFA, Kent, CT Fugue, Another Gallery, New York Bring Your Own Sunshine, KBFA, Larchmont, NY Planned Parenthood Benefit, M. David & Co., Brooklyn, NY

Horizons, Chase Edwards Contemporary, Bridgehampton, NY

2014–15 Mixtape, 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY

Back to the Future, Life on Mars Gallery, Brooklyn NY HerART Benefit LSG Fund, New York

The Painting Center Turns 21, Brooklyn, NY

Silence Is Accurate, Cape Town, South Africa

Making History, Store Front Benefit, Brooklyn, NY

Among Friends, Dumbo Waterfront Studios, Brooklyn, NY

Summer Salon, Seager Gray Gallery, San Francisco

Castle Hill Benefit, David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY

Axiom Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2016–17 Duality; Glimpses of the Other Side, ISLIP Museum of Art, Long Island, NY

Driven to Abstraction, Susan Eley Fine Art, New York Incipiences, The Buggy Factory, Brooklyn, NY Straight Outta Bushwick, Eva Chimento Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Honorable Beasts, Elgin Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Sluice + Exchange Rates, Brooklyn Fire Proof, Brooklyn, NY Social Photography, Carriage Trade Gallery, New York Life on Mars Summer Invitational, Life on Mars, Brooklyn, NY

ART FAIRS

SELECTED PRESS

2020 UNTITLED Art, Miami Beach, Hollis Taggart (online)

“Dana James,” LE MILE Magazine, issue no. 30 (spring/summer 2021).

2017 UNTITLED Art, Miami Beach, Fiercely Curious, Miami 2016 Art Hamptons Fair, Urban Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY 2015 AQUA Art Fair, Miami Basel, Fiercely Curious, Miami 2014 Cutlog Art Fair, Jag Modern, New York 2013 Fountain Art Fair, The Hanger Gallery, New York

Anjali Singh, “Contemporary Artist Dana James,” Asian Curator, 2021, asiancurator. com/contemporary-artist-dana-james/. “Hollis Taggart Adds Two New Artists to Roster,” ARTnews, January 23, 2020, artnews.com/art-news/news/brief-january -21-2020-1202675917/. “20 Painters Who Are Shaping the New Decade,” Daily Collector, January 20, 2020, dailycollector.org/daily-collector/2020/1 /10/20-painters-who-are-shaping-thenew-decade. “Hollis Taggart to Open New Space in Chelsea,” ARTnews, September 24, 2019, artnews.com/art-news/news/breaking -art-industry-news-september-232019-13267/. “Past, Present, Future: Lizbeth Mitty and Dana James,” Two Coats of Paint, April 9, 2019, twocoatsofpaint.com/2019/04/ past-present-and-future-with-dana-james -and-lizbeth-mitty.html. Danielle Burham, “Lizbeth Mitty & Dana James: The Thread,” Art Spiel, March 30, 2019, artspiel.org/lizbeth-mitty-dana-james-the -thread/. Kelly McCafferty, “Dana James: A Profile,” The Coastal Post, March 12, 2019, thecoastalpost.com/studio-visits-posts/ 2019/3/12/dana-james-a-profile. Becca Beberaggi, “Bushwick Gallery Explores Mother-Daughter Artist Duo’s Relationship for Women’s History Month,” Bushwick Daily, March 11, 2019, bushwickdaily.com/ bushwick/categories/arts-and-culture/ 5921-bushwick-gallery-explores-mother -daughter-artist-duo-s-relationship-for -international-women-s-month. Cecelia Nowell, “Satisfying Shapes, A Mother-Daughter Show, and More Art This Week,” Bedford + Bowery, March 12, 2019, bedfordandbowery.com/2019/03/satisfying -shapes-a-mother-daughter-show-and-more -art-this-week/.

“‘The Thread’ Presents an Intergenerational Dialogue between Mother & Daughter,” Art & Object, February 20, 2019, artandobject. com/press-release/thread-presents -intergenerational-dialogue-between-mother -daughter. Akeem K. Duncan, “Another Gallery Presents ‘Fugue’ Inaugural Exhibition,” Quiet Lunch, December 11, 2018, quietlunch.com/ another-gallery-fugue/. Elisa Wouk Almino, “A Workshop to Help Artists Sell Their Work,” Hyperallergic, June 19, 2018, hyperallergic.com/447831/ selling-your-art-soho20-feminist-art -project/. Danielle Burnham, “Dana James: From Dreams of Pools to Caves of Jewels,” A Hundred Eleven, January 22, 2018. David Cohen, “Saturday is the last chance to see Peter Doig at Michael Werner ahead of The Review Panel, Monday at Brooklyn Public Library,” artcritical, November 10, 2017. Paul Behnke, “Dana James at the Lodge Gallery,” Structure and Imagery, November 1, 2017, structureandimagery.blogspot.com/ 2017/11/dana-james-at-lodge-gallery. html?spref=fb. “Dana James: Sometimes Seen Dreams,” artcritical, 2017, artcritical.com/listing/ dana-james-sometimes-seen-dreams/. Paul D’Agostino, “Sometimes Seen Dreams,” After Vasari, November 20, 2017, aftervasari. wordpress.com/2017/09/20/sometimes -seen-dreams/. David Reisman, “Driven to Abstraction,” Wall Street International Magazine, February 28, 2017, wsimag.com/ art/23917-driven-to-abstraction. “Chimento Contemporary: Straight Outta Bushwick,” Art and Cake, February 1, 2017, artandcakela.com/2017/02/01/chimento -contemporary-straight-outta-bushwick/.

Gabby Bess, “How Many Feminist Artists Does It Take to Define Feminist Art?,” Vice, September 24, 2015, vice.com/en/article/ vv5kq9/how-many-feminist-artists-does -it-take-to-define-feminist-art. Thomas Micchelli, “The Other Side of Portraiture,” Hyperallergic, July 11, 2015, hyperallergic.com/221273/the-other-side -of-portraiture/. Etty Yaniv, “What the Seas Have Made us: Beauty and Decay at Proto,” Arts in Bushwick, August 3, 2015. Paul D’Agostino, “View Inside: Dana James,” Art(inter) New York, May 11, 2015, artinterviewsny.com/view-inside-dana -james/. Anthony Haden-Guest, “Williamsburg Is Over,” The Art Newspaper, no. 255, March 2014. Sol Park, “Change of Art,” Brooklyn Paper, September 7, 2013, brooklynpaper.com/ change-of-art/. Lori Zimmer, “Guest Curating on Artsicle,” Art Nerd New York, July 5, 2012, art-nerd. com/newyork/guest-curating-on-artsicle/.

PANELS

AWARDS

2018 “Getting Basic: How to Sell Your Art,” Soho 20 and the Feminist Art Project, with Kat Greifen and Jackie Battenfield

2008 Most recognized Artist Statement, School of Visual Arts, New York

“School of Visual Arts Scholarship Awardee Panel,” New York “Transcender Crit Panel,” Brooklyn Fire Proof, New York 2017 “Art Critical, The Review Panel,” Brooklyn Public Library, NY

2005 English and Written Word: Recognized Academic, Emerson College, MA 2004 Overall Creativity Award, Brooklyn Friends, Brooklyn, NY Wesleyan Book Award in Arts and Writing, Brooklyn, NY

2016 “School of Visual Art Alumni Panel,” SVA, New York

Creative Writing and Poetry, Brooklyn Friends, Brooklyn, NY

“Feminism in Art,” Idio Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

RESIDENCIES

“Bushwick Art Crit: BACG 3rd Annual AIB Bushwick Open Studio Crit Night,” Brooklyn, NY

January 2020 100 West Corsicana, Corsicana, TX

2015 “Enlightening the New York Studio School,” Life on Mars Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Hellin Kay, “Dana James, Artist,” Champagne and Heels, March 15, 2012, champagneandheels.com/beauty/dana-james-artist/. Steve Lewis, “What’s Good in BedStuy— Clubs, Parties, and William Witenberg at the Elgin Gallery,” BlackBook, March 12, 2014, blackbookmag.com/happenings/fat-cats -elgin-gallery-bedstuy/. Anne Russinof, “Back to the Future, Part 1, at Life on Mars,” Gallery Travels Seen around Town, January 18, 2015, gallerytravels. blogspot.com/2015/01/back-to-futurepart-1-at-life-on-mars.html. Sheba Legend, “The 15 Minutes Project,” live broadcast on Brooklyn Public Network, April 23, 2014.

This catalogue has been published on the occasion of the exhibition “Dana James: Something I Meant to Say” organized by Hollis Taggart, New York, and presented from June 3–July 2, 2021. All Artwork © Dana James “Daydream Nation” © Jason Stopa ISBN: 978-1-7333303-8-1 Publication © 2021 Hollis Taggart All rights reserved. Reproduction of contents prohibited. Page 4: Widow’s Peak, 2021 (detail) Pages 8–9: The Feral Empress, 2021 (detail) HOLLIS TAGGART 521 West 26th Street 1st Floor New York, NY 10001 Tel 212 628 4000 Fax 212 570 5786 www.hollistaggart.com Catalogue production: Kara Spellman Copyediting: Jessie Sentivan Design: McCall Associates, New York Printing: Meridian Printing, Rhode Island Photography: Joshua Nefsky Photo of artist: James Collins