Artist Statement

My work is a playful yet incisive connection to the layered complexities of the female journey, embracing the body as both sanctuary and battleground—a perspective shaped by formative encounters with clinical environments through my physician father and my mother’s artistic lineage, which instilled a deep connection to making. These influences continue to inform my lifelong engagement with themes of embodiment and healing, brought to life in a bold South Florida palette.

Each piece unfolds like a mythic journey through shifting emotional landscapes, drawing upon a lineage of feminist thought—including Juliet Mitchell’s influential 1966 essay Women: The Longest Revolution, published the year I was born—while weaving together ecofeminist visions, meditation’s quiet magic, and shamanic practice.

Each story is held within painting, sculptural assemblage, fiber, text-based work, and performance, transforming lived experience into poetic visual statements that open windows onto the emotional and physical realities of the female body. Working across these varied forms deepens my inquiry into how material, process, and meaning are intertwined in the worlds I create. Each piece becomes both a personal excavation and a reflection on collective histories, engaging with memory, aging, disability, health, environmental crisis, and the ever-evolving roles of women.

In these realms charged with raw emotion, humor is as vital as grief and rage, balancing empowerment and vulnerability. I celebrate the body’s tender strength, honor ancestry pulsing beneath every surface, and embrace all the big emotions of living in a female body—transforming them into sources of creation and connection.

Bio

Dana Donaty (b. 1966, Columbus, Ohio) is a Colombian-American multidisciplinary artist based in Palm Beach County, Florida. She holds a BFA from Moore College of Art & Design (1988) and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (2024). Donaty’s practice spans painting, fiber, assemblage, performance, and text-based media. Her work is playful yet incisive connection to the layered complexities of the female journey, embracing the body as both sanctuary and battleground—a perspective shaped by formative encounters with clinical environments through her physician father, and her mother’s artistic lineage, which instilled a deep connection to making. These influences continue to inform her lifelong engagement with themes of embodiment and healing, brought to life in a bold South Florida palette.

Selected Solo exhibitions: “Mile Marker 58: A Softer Way Through” (2025) Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; “Pareidolia” (2025) Mattie Kelly Art Center Galleries, NW Florida State College, Destin, Florida; “Psychedelic Rodeo” (2019), Florida Atlantic University Library, Jupiter, Florida; “Profoundly Playful; A Survey of Works” (2018), Coral Springs Museum, Coral Springs, Florida, “Profoundly Playful” (2018), Cornell Museum of Art, Delray, FL, “Reality Check” (2016), South Florida Ford, Fordistas Gallery, Miami, FL. Selected Group Shows: “Don’t Be Absurd” (2025) The Camp Gallery, Miami, Florida; “The Body Show” (2025) Arts Warehouse, Delray, Florida; “Ancestral Lines” (2025) Coral Springs Art Museum, Coral Springs, Florida; “Evidence of Things Unseen “(2024) The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, New York; “The American Woman; Feminist Futures” (2024) Hera Gallery, Wakefield, Rhode Island.Public collections: Coral Springs Museum of Art; Palm Beach County AIPP; Boynton Beach AIPP; ArtLife West Palm Beach, Palm Beach International Art Gallery

Residencies: Arts Warehouse (2021) Delray Florida, Bakehouse Art Complex (2014-2019) Miami Florida, South Florida Ford, Miami, Florida (2019), Frozen Music (2020) Jaipur, India; Kriti Gallery (2019) Varanasi, India