The Fresno Art Museum has presented many mid-career artists over the last fifty years and has an outstanding record of support for the work of California women artists. Few have possessed such a spirit of radiance and the informed sensitivity of sculptor Danae Mattes. It is with great pride that we introduce the exhibition Danae Mattes: Inherent Process to our patrons and supporting friends.
Danae Mattes' ceramic sculptural abstractions are both organic and iconic. Informed by the natural world of process, Mattes hands have worked clay into vertical conceptual images presented as the Sibyl Series. She has used both clay and water creating circular forms known as Evaporation Pools. As a means of contemplation, these works take on a presence of timelessness offering a means of passage for the human spirit. The figures, though deliberately formed of clay, bear both mythological and poetic symbolisms that are ultimately released tot he transformative power of chance. Through the process of evaporation, randomly textural surfaces emerge giving voice to the mystery of permeability. Having chosen clay and water as medium, the condition of permeability becomes a metaphor for the essence of transformation.
Educated at Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania, followed by earning an MFA at Long Beach State University, Mattes has an extensive record of solo exhibitions both in California and in Germany as well as numerous group exhibitions in the United States and in Europe. She has been an artists in residence most recently at Cite Internationale de Arts, Paris, France preceded by grants and residencies at the European Cermaic Work Center, s'Hertogenbosch, Holland; Taller Huara-Huara, Santiago, Chile; Kultusministerin des Landes Scheleswig-Holstein, Germany; Elbstrasse 41, City of Lauenburg/Elbe, Germany; and a One Year Grant, Kunstlerhaus, Lauenburg, Kultusministerin des Landes Schlesswih-Holstein, Germany.
Danae Mattes has executed five public sculpture commissions and her work is represented in both private and public art collections.