Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

New Course program / APRL 2022
Danielle Wright
UK
www.daniellewright.co.uk
About
Danielle Wright is a fine artist, graphic design and visual
communicator, and occasional philosopher. Working in
whatever media seems most appropriate at the time,
Danielle’s current practice includes drawing, print, collage,
photography both with and without a camera, creative code
and motion design. What ties these works together is a near
pathological avoidance of making all the decisions, combined
with a rejection of what is usually expected, instead exploring
the potential of the process of creation.
Drawings are guided by rules and structure, working with
modular forms and iterative, minor alterations. Prints
are one-of-a-kind, with a focus on producing intriguing
accidental patterns and texture. Photographic experiments
including deliberate but largely uncontrolled distortion of the
visual field, and photograms, made in the darkroom, using
the qualities of found materials mixed with time and light.
In her digital work it is rare to find a piece of creative code
or motion graphics that doesn’t rely heavily on ‘random’,
‘wiggle’, or ‘turbulent displace’.
Danielle has postgraduate qualifications in Philosophy
(MA), and Design for Visual Communication (PGCert), and
undergraduate degrees in Fine Art, and Politics, Philosophy
and History (PPH, not PPE!). This mixed education of
academic and creative pursuits has left Danielle perpetually
sceptical of the stated intentions usually accompanying
creative work, yet continuing to search for meaning in her
own collaborations which chaos and chance.
Choice vs. Chance: Discuss
I applied to Arteles with an open goal: to find a way to join
up all the art things I do and make sense of them as a single
creative practice. I looked forward to finding time to work
without distractions, without computers and equipment; just
me and too many art supplies, and friendly new eyes to help
me see more clearly.
Being at Arteles, watching the winter shoot straight through
spring, into what in England would be the most glorious
summer, the landscape took a magical form, became a
metaphor for my emotional state as I dug deep into my art.
As the melting snow flowed along spontaneous streams,
passing the still half-buried stone circle, down the driveway
and into the fields below, I found painting. Large painting.
Painting using great streams of acrylic and water. Painting
taking real physical effort to create, which caused terrible
back pain until I discovered dancing-while-painting, to shake
out the sediment in my bones.
I found what I was looking for and more. Not only focus and
direction in the work I came with, and beyond my renewed
love of paint; I found poetry in the landscape, metaphor
in nature, writing as a meditative practice, walking as a
reflective exercise. And I found friends, I hope, for life.
Since Arteles I have been appreciating all the shades of
green spring has to offer and trying to hold on to the magic
of the Finnish countryside. But it is not easy, being back at
home. Home is not the same now.