Danni O'Brien
Play Date
January 4 – January 27, 2019
“Play Date” explores childhood landscapes through camp, craft, and humor. The immersive set of candy colored, fuzztastic objects echo forms of both playground equipment and O’Brien’s memory of her own awkward, pubescent body. Plush “paintings” and skins emerge from the nostalgic and kitschy process of latch hook rug making. This technique is employed as a vehicle to grapple with notions of femininity, domesticity, and craft, as well as for its titillating and tactile physical qualities.
The laborious latch hooking process results in robust, fibrous images containing imagery of personal, adolescent girlhood motifs and memories. Materials for the fibrous segments are sourced from collections of vintage wool on eBay and cheap plastic rope from the dollar store. This peculiar framework results in off kilter color schemes and animated textural shifts. Precise woodworking, haphazardly assembled ceramics, and found objects join the conversation to transform the plush skins into whimsical, dynamic forms. The assembled props in this mixed media landscape are meant to be evocative, cheeky, and invite touch and play.
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O’Brien is a queer womyn maker and art educator currently based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work is rooted in play, collecting, and constructing and informed by an education in assemblage sculpture, fiber arts, and ceramics. She marries construction and wood working skills with traditionally feminized and domesticated systems such as stitching, beading, and rug making to compose her dually hard and soft objects. Danni has recently been awarded artist residencies at PLOP (London, UK), The Maple Terrace (Brooklyn, NY), Art Farm (Marquette, NE) and Proyecto Ace (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Her sculpture work has been shown at Little Berlin (Philadelphia, PA), Terrault (Baltimore, MD), Juicebox Gallery (Kansas City, MO) and published in Architectural Digest, ArtMaze, and Hiss Mag. She is currently preparing for an upcoming solo show with School 33 in Baltimore, MD.
