AMANDA DANNING
FEATURED ARTIST APRIL 2019
As forensic sculptor and an artist, I create works that capture and relate those moments and things which can’t be seen at 70 miles per hour. Most of us storm through our day to days and miss how the quality of sunlight changes in winter or how silos and barn roofs appear to be lit from within against the ultramarine skies because of it. We don’t have time to pull off the side of the road to see a country Church floating on a sea of grass. Few get to watch as a newborn foal fumble through the first days with new legs. Many of us have never seen a herd of Brahmas standing shoulder to shoulder, staring at you when you drive in their pasture. I have. I want to share them.
My paintings are snapshots like the 20 minutes of magic that happens about 7:43 AM on a winter morning as the sun lays layer after layer of chunky golden light on the west wall of the Grand Canyon or a glimpse of the sun slicing through a fortress of rocks that stand like a sentry as you leave the Petrified Forest. I use gold leaf, silver leaf and precious metal coatings to some of my paintings. The way ambient light plays with 22 karat gold on the rugged peaks of ancient stone is so like being there when the sun comes up in the mountains. The silver as sky reacts to ambient light changes unlike anything else I know.
My sculpture catches the pride and grit of a Texas Ranger or the goofiness of a foal trying to figure out if the new stilts will ever work as legs or the barely controlled explosion of power of a prancing stallion after he has just raced the wind… and won.
In my forensic work, I use scientific, medical and anthropological reports, the forensic science and the skull of someone who died 10,000 years ago to show their face in this century. The science of facial reconstruction allows for less than one half a millimeter of tolerance. However, I combine my passion for these individuals and my sculpting talent to translate the detailed and often dry scientific reports into a sculpture that reflects some of the struggles or personality evidenced in their bones. Peggy Jodry, of the Smithsonian Institute once said of one of my forensic works that it was like my subject had been speaking to me from the past. I could not have asked for a better compliment.
The extent of my fascination with and awe at beauty, power and mystery of this world is more than tongue can tell, so I make art.
Spanning the Colorado
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The Window
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