My paintings are grounded in material exploration and abstraction. In my current work, I extrude oil paint line by line to replicate weaving. This labor-intensive process, akin to many handwork traditions, proceeds mark by mark, constructing abstract, illusory woven surfaces that conjure topographical, organic, and bodily forms. Linen functions as a three-dimensional armature for the paint and as a sculptural material that creates compositional interventions.
The textured surfaces combine with the sculptural linen forms to produce unfolding visual “events” that shift with the changing light of the day and the position of the viewer in space. Openings, closures, planes, and textures are alternately hidden and revealed. In addition, by delaying recognition, the illusion of weaving in the paintings complicates core assumptions within and between painting and textiles, engaging conversations in contemporary painting that address craft, labor, gender, and abstraction.
My practice is informed by a modernist matrilineage: the bodily materiality of Eva Hesse’s constructions, Agnes Martin’s devotion to the grid as an infinite, improvisational, and expressionistic form, Ruth Asawa’s insistence on meaning in handwork, and Annie Albers’ emphasis on the communicative power of tactility. Building on this legacy, my paintings activate meaning through visual and textural perception, foregrounding materiality and the experience of touch as powerful vehicles for communicating embodied knowledge and experience.
Bio:
Danielle Mysliwiec holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Brintz+County (Palm Beach, Florida), Novella Gallery (New York, New York), Vox Populi Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), and Kent State University (Kent, Ohio).
Selected fairs and group exhibitions include The Peale Museum (Baltimore, MD), Untitled Art Fair, (Miami, Florida), Asya Geisberg Gallery (New York, New York), Good Naked Gallery (New York, New York), McKenzie Fine Art (New York, New York), Mixed Greens Gallery (New York, New York), Transmitter Gallery (Brooklyn, New York), Rockelmann & (Berlin, Germany), Heiner Contemporary (DC), and The Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design (Asheville, North Carolina).
Mysliwiec’s paintings have been featured and reviewed in publications including The Brooklyn Rail, Maake Magazine, The New York Times, New American Paintings, Inertia, Art F City, The Washington Post, B’more Art and others. Mysliwiec has also been a contributor to the Brooklyn Rail. Awards include fully funded residencies to the Tides Institute & Museum, Long Meadow Art Residency, the Surf Point Foundation, and the Pollock Krasner Fellowship at The Vermont Studio Center, as well as grants from the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Commission.
Mysliwiec is currently on the board of Interlude Artist Residency, a residency supporting parent artists. She is an Associate Professor of Art at American University .