Artist Statement
My paintings wrestle with the ways we deny, adore, and/or ignore the materials that define our lives and futures. I am invigorated, devastated, and endlessly curious about what a painting means inside this roaring and rapidly changing world. How do I grapple with my seething love for this Earth alongside the intoxicating fear for its collapse? In an effort to churn through ongoing questions and confusions, I search for the messy, gooey, unpredictable, and generative moments that arise when contrast, opposites, and contradicting ideas exist in the same space. For example, can plastic exist alongside the sacred? Can plastic be sacred? Is it possible to hold the agony of decay alongside awe and adoration?
I begin each painting with questions like these and a deep consideration of the textures, temperatures, colors, and sensations of a specific landscape. I then combine instinctual mark-making with meticulous realism in order to create an entangled story where materials that seem to oppose each other in texture and purpose, like clouds and plastic or bodies and rocks, interact and seek balance. I paint to propose that with our stories, ideologies, and physical creations, we can open ourselves to multiple truths, perspectives, and transformations in order to have deeper conversations about what it means to face the reality of our shifting systems alongside our entangled existence.
Bio
Born a middle child, in the middle of the country, and in the middle of two families with vastly different political and social views, Daisy has always jumped in and out of seemingly separate worlds. She grew up noticing the ways class, politics, lifestyles, and family structures can influence perspectives, which led to a fascination with observing culture, change, and social systems. During her freshman year of college at the University of Kansas, Daisy fell in love with the quest to find intersections between art and peacebuilding. Daisy’s adventures along that path have focused on storytelling, transformation, ecological cosmologies, and weaving strange worlds together. Daisy is dedicated to painting specifically, as the practice allows for narratives that are not bound to language.
Daisy maintains an eco-friendly studio practice, she celebrates bewilderment, and she loves a good laugh. Daisy earned her BA and BFA from the University of Kansas in 2018 and her MA in Peace and Justice from the University of San Diego in 2020. She was the Program Evaluator for Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation in 2019, and she is a co-author of “Addressing the Environment-Peace Nexus,” Peace Review, 2021. Daisy’s work has been selected for nine juried shows since 2022, she was a Future Art Award winner with Mozaik Philanthropy in 2022, and she continues to show her work around the Bay Area. Daisy is also the Community Impact Manager for Jewish Studio Project, an incredible nonprofit that brings a combination of art therapy practices and ancient Jewish wisdom to communities around the country.
CV
Education
2020 MA Peace and Justice, University of San Diego
2018 BFA Visual Arts, University of Kansas
2018 BA Humanities, Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Kansas
Group Exhibitions
2024 Explorations in Monochromatic Art, Arts Benicia, juried exhibition, Benicia, CA (Juror: Leah Rosenburg)
2023 Devastating Loves and Transcendent Hatreds, NCWCA sponsored regional juried exhibition, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Albany, CA (Jurors: Robert Abrams, Leah Andrews, Olive Hyde)
2023 Emerging Artists 2023, juried exhibition, Healdsburg Center for the Arts, Healdsburg, CA
2023 Art and Ecology, online juried exhibition, O’Hanlon Gallery, Mill Valley, CA (Juror: Obi Kaufmann)
2023 Made in California, juried exhibition, BREA Gallery, Brea, CA
2023 The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE, juried exhibition, Manhattan Arts International, (Juror: Renée Phillips)
2022 RESTART, juried exhibition, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA (Juror: Patricia Hickson)
2022 ECOSYSTEMS X, juried exhibition, Mozaik Philanthropy
2021 Culture Shifted, TUO TUO, Joutsa, Finland
2019 RAW Artists Group Show, Los Angeles, CA
2018 First Fridays February, Art Emergency, Lawrence, KS
2018 Temporary Exhibition, Nunemaker Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
2016 Floor Display, October Exhibition, Chalmers Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Solo Exhibitions
2018, Altered, Ardent, Afraid, University of Kansas Union Gallery, Lawrence, KS
Honors and Awards
2023 Special Recognition Award, Manhattan Art International, The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE (Juror: Renée Phillips)
2022 Honorable Mention Award, 3rd Portrait, Art Show International Gallery
2022 Special Mention Prize, Future Art Awards, ECOSYSTEMS X, Mozaik Philanthropy
2021 Competition Winner, All Figurative/Portrait Art Theme, Contemporary Art Gallery Online
Publications
2023 Special Recognition Art Award Winners, The Healing Power of ART inspired by NATURE, Manhattan Art International
2022 Create Magazine, Superfine Returns to LA — 8 Highlight Artists
2022 Pigeon Review, May 2022, Virtual Art and Literary Magazine
2021 Crane, Daisy. Cordero, Peyton. Tirrell, Andrew. “Addressing the Environment-Peace Nexus,” Peace Review
2017 Kiosk Magazine, 57th Edition, Pg. 35 & 36, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
2017 Sink Hollow, Pg. 16 & Cover, Utah State University, Logan, UT
2017 Is In the Air: A Guide to Youth, Sex, and Romance, Pg. 4, 5, 6 & 7, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Residencies
2021 TUO TUO, arts and ecology residency, Joutsa, Finland
2018 SFSIA, Art and Politics in the Age of Cognitive Capitalism, Los Angeles CA