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DANNY FERRELL
CASTLE IN THE SKY
17 March - 23 April 2022
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Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by Danny Ferrell on view through 23 April 2022. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated digital publication featuring an essay by Lauren O’Neill-Butler and conversation with Shona McAndrew.
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Danny FerrellTouch-Up, 2022Oil on canvas84 x 60 inches
213.4 x 152.4 cm"Ferrell’s works depict gay men living their lives at ease and doing ordinary things, but through a wonderful sense of immortality. These paintings emphasize that a queer person, just like every living being, is permitted to have an existence full of ordinary moments—free from indignity, oppression, and hostility. I’d argue that Ferrell’s work is all about positive liberty—the possibility of acting, or the fact of acting, in such a way as to take control of one’s life. This, to me, makes his work slyly revolutionary."
- Lauren O’Neill-Butler in "Quiet Freedoms"
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"I am colorful and gregarious with an appreciation for beauty and humbled by the ineffable cosmic hand that imbues our world with magic. I am inspired by the clouds and the trees, flowers and their colors, men and fashion; I envy the sublime skyscapes of Tiepolo and Thomas Cole, the glorious visual theater of Christ’s Ascension; the camp photographs of Pierre et Gilles and the acid-washed aesthetic of Ed Paschke. I love the melodrama in George Tooker and the technical precision of Magritte. I long for what can't be said about painting and mourn that everything has to be mediated through language."
- Danny Ferrell
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Danny Ferrell Studio, 2021, Pittsburgh, PA
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Danny Ferrell Studio, 2021, Pittsburgh, PA
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Danny FerrellRetrograde, 2022Color pencil on paper48 3/16 x 38 3/8 inches
122.4 x 97.5 cm"Color is incredibly important to me. So much so that I see color asserting itself as a secondary or tertiary character in the painting—a component with as much life and vitality as the figures I am depicting. Color also allows my work to have a particular sense of mood and creates an indeterminate sense of time and place. I see the paintings emerging from the intersection of emotional content and formalism, so the ways in which color, light, and surface interact with personal identity are all crucial to my practice."
- Danny Ferrell
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Danny Ferrell Studio, 2021, Pittsburgh, PA
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Danny Ferrell in his Studio, 2021, Pittsburgh, PA
DANNY FERRELL (b. 1991, Flint, MI) received his Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA.
Recent solo exhibitions include“Castle in the Sky,” Miles McEnery Gallery, NewYork,NY (forthcoming); “Honey,” Marinaro, NewYork,NY; “Magic Hour,” Galerie PACT, Paris, France; “Behind the Curtain” (with Hiba Schahbaz and Sophia Narrett), Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL;“Solo Booth,” NewArt DealersAlliance, Galerie PACT, NewYork,NY; “He’s American” (with Devan Shimoyama), Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA, and “Cakes,” Patterson Gallery, State College, PA.
Recent group exhibitions include “Just As I Am,” 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; “Sound and Color” (curated by Brian Alfred), Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “Vortex” (curated by Allison Zuckerman), Kravets Wehby, New York, NY; “Surely Some Revelation Is At Hand,” Marinaro, NewYork, NY;“Sit Still” (curated by Patty Horing and Deborah Brown), Anna Zorina Gallery, New York, NY;“After and Because Of,” Marsh Gallery, Indiana Unversity, Indianapolis, IN; “Bathers,” Bass and Rainer, San Francisco, CA; “Bang On,” Divine Hammer, Able Baker Contemporary, Portland, ME; “Potpourri,” Neumann Wolfson Fine Art, New York, NY; “Artist Who Teach,” Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA; “Life’s Rich Pageant,” Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY; “The Staging of Vulernability,” SPRING/BREAK Art Show, 4 Times Square, NY; “Canon Fodder,” Zoller Gallery, University Park, PA; “Vernacular Spectacular!,” Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI; “Intimacy Queered,” Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI; “RISD 2016 MFA Painting Thesis Exhibition,” Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY; “The Boston Biennial,” Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, MA; and “RISD Graduate Thesis,” Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI.
He is the recipient of the Rhode Island School of Design Graduate Fellowship, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, and the Creative Achievement Award, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA.
Ferrell lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA.