SUSAN DANKO

For the next eleven weeks, we will be highlighting each of the artists in our new show, Engaging Women, which will be on view from March 8 – April 27.

Protected Land

Susan Danko is a painter and installation artist based in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1998, and has built a successful career as a fine art painter and educator. Career honors include a 2013 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, a 2013 Fine Arts Work Center collaborative residency in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Ohio Percent for Art commission awards in 2018 and 2015. Susan has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Butler Museum of American Art, the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery, SPACES gallery, and the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech. Her work is held in prominent art collections including the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, First Energy Corporation, and the Cleveland Hilton Hotel and Convention Center. Her work is represented by Bonfoey Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. More of her artwork may be viewed on her website.

In Shadow

As a contemporary landscape painter, experiencing the natural environment is an integral part of Susan Danko’s creative process. Her observations of the natural world serve as the source of inspiration for the work that she makes. Over years of observing, Danko noted many gradual transformations in the sites that she frequents. As a witness to the environmental changes that are occurring, she is compelled to make paintings that address the new realities of our environment today — A world where invasive species, extreme weather, and environmental degradation are steadily becoming the new normal.

Days End

The paintings that Danko creates are formed by her thoughts and responses to the new state of our contemporary natural environment. They are constructed from both memory and observation, and arise from real and imagined environmental scenarios. With them, Danko examines the power and fragility of nature caught in a state of flux between destruction and renewal. In creating these paintings, she hopes to raise awareness, and inspire a greater respect for the environment that we all share.

Delineated Woodlands

The formal issues addressed in Susan Danko’s work stem from her interest in the tensions between abstraction and representation, order and chaos, and the natural versus the artificial. These polarities are fitting to her theme as they mirror the conflict present in our environment today. Grappling to reconcile these drastic and disparate qualities provides the creative challenge which drives Danko’s work. Within these polarities lies a visual language that I find challenging and exciting to explore.

Night Shade

See Susan Danko’s work in our current show, Engaging Women at The Bonfoey Galley, 1710 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115. For more information, visit our website. For questions, call (216) 621-0178 or send us an email.