As ideas settle and paint dries, Dana DeKalb’s fantastical world comes to life:
“Is artist Dana DeKalb telling us new, fantastical stories — or reflecting our own back to us? Contemplative imagination, miracles afoot, or cautionary tale? All these notions may be true. In paintings that are mostly small in size, her attentive illustrative technique draws us in, where an unfolding intimate fable keeps us there…”
Mary Corbin, 48 Hills, September, 2023
Wonder Women Exhibit at Berkeley Art Center:
“…It could be said that her art is “outsider art,” except that the imagery embeds itself in classic, good-versus-evil narratives. The first art-related images she took to heart were Renaissance paintings depicting the lives of the saints — and comic books. Both feature protagonists and tell partial stories, as do the museum dioramas of ancient cultures she admires that blend science, mythology, archeology, art, culture, and history…”
Lou Fancher, East Bay Express, May, 2018
Dana DeKalb at Sue Greenwood Fine Art:
“…The fact that her images appear quaintly archaic, but are psychologically attuned to the present moment is a signal achievement. The illustrational naturalism attached to the human figures and pictorial space is always clear and rhythmically measured like a drumbeat…” …Read More…
Bill Lasarow, Visual Art Source, September, 2010
Mazes of Meaning:
“San Francisco artist Dana DeKalb traces the inspiration for her latest series to Mexican retablo painting. Similar to the intimate form of folk art, her open-ended narrative pieces are metaphors with multiple layers of meaning…” …Read More…
Michelle Bogwart, American Art Collector, October, 2010
Dana DeKalb: Expect the Unexpected:
“Dana DeKalb’s paintings tell mysteriously compelling stories of humans and animals in unusual situations that raise more questions than they answer. Enveloped in an antique light of layered glazes, her oddly recognizable characters appear engaged in inscrutable actions and interchanges that create a dream-like state of wonder…”
Nicholas Messing, Edgenewyork.com; Edgechicago.com; Provincetown Magazine, June, 2007
Impossible Dreams: Dana DeKalb Creates Imaginary Universes Inside Her San Francisco Studio:
“…An examination of DeKalb’s recent nearly sold-out show at Heather Marx Gallery in San Francisco offers insight into the artist’s psyche. As the show’s title, Social Studies, suggests, the artist often plays the role of a sociologist in many of her paintings, creating imaginary worlds in which people, places, and things share a resemblance to the real world…” …Read More…
Bonnie Ganglehoff, Southwest Art, February, 2004
Mysterious Jewels: Dana DeKalb at Heather Marx Gallery:
“Close observation of Dana DeKalb’s show at the Heather Marx Gallery reveals mysterious jewels of paintings. The mystery encompasses paintings of people in action, portraits, and still lifes. Exactingly painted, the art is beautiful and evocative of dreams…” …Read More…
Carol L. Weinfield, sanfranciscoartmagazine.com, January, 2002
Heart Throb:
“…Laughter is one of her glazes. It runs wickedly around with the other colors. She has broken down the grammar of myth, enwrapped the chemical formula of fable with pigment, and used it to evoke the central mystery of life. Over and over, she paints with unreal colors the blight in the air before a lightning storm. Everything is still then, except for our breathing, and our hearts slowly registering the tricky essence of existence. We realize only that something elemental is going on, but investigating the mystery only leads us back to this moment of grace…” …Read More…
Theresa Whitehill, Heather Marx Gallery exhibition essay, November, 2001