Painted canvas isn't limited to a stretched rectangular frame
Dana Parisi is a painter and textile artist who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. She received bachelor's degrees in Art and Business and has lived the Chicago for the past 12 years. She began her art career drawing before finding that painting provided her more room for expression through color and mark-making. She painting on stretched canvases initially, but now she also paints on canvas that she fashions into sculptural installations. She cuts petals out of the canvas and then binds the petals together to create flowers or other organic shapes. The individual pieces are assembled into installations resembling lichen or moss. She places them on man-made backgrounds to evoke thoughts of nature taking over industrialized space. Her artwork is heavily influenced by her many travels and her love of yoga, which she has taught for the past 8 years. Her installations, called “Blooms,” began as street art in which Dana would find a wall in Chicago and meticulously fix flowers to the wall one by one to create an organic form. The flowers would accumulate to form bursts that appeared to be emerging from cracks in the walls. Though she still makes street art, her installation work is often commissioned for public and private spaces, allowing for the continued development of her aesthetic and the climate change awareness mission behind the work.
