Self-Preservation

March 26th, 2022 -May 14th, 2022
project room Gallery

Featured Artist:

Danielle Krysa

Broken can be beautiful, trash can be treasure, and a bit of cheeky humor can always be found — you just have to keep your eyes open.

Danielle Krysa joins the Penticton Art Gallery for her exhibit “Self Preservation” in the Project Gallery, running from March 26—May 15, 2022.

Danielle Krysa is a Canadian artist with a BFA in Visual Arts and a post-grad degree in design. Her combination of found imagery and found objects work together to create a brand new story. Her work is held in private collections in Canada, Australia, The United States and Europe. Danielle is also the writer behind the contemporary art site, The Jealous Curator, and the author of “Creative Block”, “Your Inner Critic Is A Big Jerk”, “A Big Important Art Book – Now With Women” , and her first children’s book, “How To Spot an Artist”.

Danielle Krysa continues to live, work, blog and curate the OK MoMA gallery from her home in Summerland, British Columbia.

“Self-Preservation” will feature a combination of sculptures and collages representing a health battle Danielle went through in June of 2020.

“I woke up in the hospital with a ten inch incision across my belly. I’d never felt this empty — both physically and emotionally. Doctors have been removing ugly lumps and growths from my abdomen for years, but this time they took everything.” Krysa recalls about her time in ill-health.  “While my uterus was no longer part of me, I was so grateful this malfunctioning organ worked long enough for me to become a mother. That said, I was now overcome with a huge sense of loss.”

Instead of wallowing in this, Krysa chose to reimagine the bits and pieces of “medical waste” they’d taken from her body as beautiful, feminine objects that she could gather and preserve — as a way to take some power back, and to preserve her state of mind. The result: Specimen jars filled with everything from broken jewelry and fake flowers, to shattered ceramics and clay cigarettes. Broken but beautiful, treasures instead of trash.

Speaking to her collages titled “From the Ashes” Krysa says, “These collages on panel are a continuation from the ‘Self-Preservation’ sculptures, but they cast a wider net. While the specimen jars focus on my personal health, the collages are about not only myself, but so many other women who have overcome difficulties, started over, pulled themselves out of the dark, and risen from the ashes to begin again. Loss, grief, and abuse can try to hold us down, but women are TOUGH. We will always, always push through the muck, and continue to bloom.”