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During her study at the Glassell School of Art and
University of Houston, Danna Harvey was a
figurative painter in watercolor, collage, and oil
mediums. Later, while working on a project for a
Houston gallery, she inadvertently placed a
piece of kitchen waxed paper over several
landscape photographs. She was drawn to the
way the wax film changed the feeling of the
landscape, and realized this reaction was and
pivotal in the development and direction of
her work.
Harvey found that a variety of subjects,
including landscapes, could often be more
subtly effective as pretexts for human emotions
than just the human figure itself. She is
interested in finding appropriate compositions
and palettes to stir particular feelings. She uses
the calendar/grid format and more recently,
the horizontal line, to evoke a psychologically
reassuring calm.
Although her palette and forms are easily
recognizable as views of nature, they are
never actual geographical locations and are
sometimes distilled to near abstraction. Using
an encaustic technique, a completed
painting is entombed in multiple layers of wax.
The mixture can be opaque and creamy, or
thin and translucent; like looking into ice.
Danna Harvey is engaged in a continuing
process of self-examination, and her paintings
are created out of a need for personal resolve.
The paintings are quiet and hopefully they
reflect the painter’s pursuit of a quiet spirit.
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