Dana Boussard
Artist Statement
Each of my drawings, paintings, fiber works and glass installations is a visual narrative that tells a story and speaks to issues that touch me deeply and personally. Throughout my career as an artist, I have always felt that art can make a difference and with that belief, has also come a passionate interest in public art that mirrors my studio work. I continually find that creating art for public spaces, gives a broad and tangible voice to my story. It is with these beliefs in the power of the visual voice that I go to the studio each day.
Recently, in my work, I began to explore the narrative of the ‘house’ as home and the home as a memory. I began a series of drawings to preserve those memories.
As I became more involved with the process, it became evident that those initial lines on paper were about the safe haven of a child’s past but as I worked, it became clear that the safe haven of today seems hard to find, and I began to see the ‘home’ in a more universal context.
I now regard the home as a moving target. I have felt it and lived it. Many of the pieces contain floating images, houses upside down, memories drifting out the window. Rooms are dressed up fit to kill, hand grenades come disguised as pinecones and the forest prime evil has been chopped up for fuel. Modular living has been relegated to the reservoir and home invasion has felt almost commonplace. Conversely, I also believe that a world without humor is an empty one and vestiges of it find their way into many works.
The world is composed of an amazing and beautiful spectrum of fantasy and fact, of the spiritual and the concrete, of the calm and the storm. As an artist, the only certainty in this world of unknowns, is the ability to work, and I am grateful for that.