This week's Lansing City Pulse cover artist: Dana Gardner-Clark

Dana Gardner-Clark bares her personality and soul through mixed media paintings. She aims to create visuals straight out of a child’s imagination, such as candy-colored animals, to illustrate personal experiences including pain and loss.

She graduated from Dewitt High School and continued her educational journey into college. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Kendall College of Art and Design, her work was displayed at Central Michigan University and Detroit Museum of New Art. In 2016, Dana created an expressive and vibrant rendition of an octopus, which was selected by the Arts Council of Greater Lansing to be on a local billboard. Dana’s latest group show was in April titled “Sense of Self” at the MSU Broad Museum of Art.

The following Q&A with Dana Gardner-Clark has been edited for clarity.

How old are you and where are you from?

I’m 55 and still alive, originally from the Lansing area. I have lived throughout Michigan, primarily in the Mount Pleasant area. I painted and taught at the Tri-County Arts Council and Art Reach of Mid-Michigan. I’m a practicing artist since 2013.

How long have you been painting? What inspired you to create art?

I’ve been drawing and painting since I can remember. My mother was a high school English teacher and I wanted to be a writer. Our house was full of books but low on art supplies. All artists think out of the box or build a box. I raided my dad’s tackle box for wire which I’d use to make wire-wrapped trees and anchored them to rocks. Our yard had a lot of rocks. Rocks are also great for drawing on, with a felt tip marker. I’d make gravestones for my goldfish. I love that Sharpie markers are now considered a legit art supply.

When did you first discover your love of art?

My first memories of art were visits to The Detroit Institute of Art, The Kresge Art Museum and The MSU Natural History Museum. I remember as a young child carving bars of Ivory soap into a menagerie of circus animals and creating elaborate dioramas, also drawing unflattering caricatures of my mother for my classmates in the brief window of time I was assigned to her middle school English class.

What is one thing most people don’t know about you?

I have a house squirrel named Fat Chuck. Both of my kids are talented artists making their mark on the world. We’re like the Wyeths.

Where do you get the inspiration for most of your art?

The soup of life. I’m a pop culture junkie. My work explores cultural iconography, art history, socio-political issues, feminism, memory, nostalgia, relevance and reverence. Small children also inspire me to paint like them and see things through their eyes.

Does any of your art stem from life experiences?

Yes, it’s all storytelling. My work is pretty linear and narratively structured, a metanarrative timeline woven with sign and signifier. My personal context and code and universal content and code.  I have a very high key Pop-influenced palette —which I suppose makes me a colorist. I’m known for my whimsical and anthropomorphic portraits; animals with human characteristics and emotions. I’ve had four spinal fusion surgeries and four nerve entrapment surgeries just this year. I recently lost my mother to breast cancer, and a dear friend struggles with the big cancer. I’m just finishing a breast cancer series of montage paintings. Everyone understands pain and joy. I think my animals are quite joyful. I try to temper the sadness with joy, cause that’s life. 

What is your main medium for the art you create?

I primarily work in watermedia — watercolor, gouache, ink.

How would you describe your art?

Contemporary figurative painter.

Did you learn any technical art styles or is this natural for you?

I learn something new every day from my local arts community. I studied illustration at Kendall College Of Art And Design and Painting and Early Childhood Art Education at MSU. I primarily work in watermedia. I spent three years getting a graphics degree, only to find out I was terrible at graphics and simplifying complex ideas. I moved on to illustration and finally to painting. The eight-year undergraduate plan, it takes time and experimentation to find your place in the world. Tuition was cheap in my day. I feel bad for today’s art students and their soul-crushing student debt. 

Who is your favorite artist?

Contemporary figurative artists: Michigan’s own Dana Schutz, and South African Marlene Dumas.

My favorite artists cross all genres and styles. At the moment, I’m interested in identity art, gender art, art that speaks to our commodified culture, art that references art history not just Western art history. Art that has socio-political content, wildlife conservation and social realism, I guess. I love Marlene Dumas for her haunting, gestural large-scale watercolors and Dana Schutz for her bold color, humor and narrative compositions. Both women are living contemporary figurative painters.

Gardner-Clark’s next group show will be held at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant in August. For more information about Gardner-Clark, search her name on saatchiart.com.