Photo: Omer Faragi, 2021
Contact
Please do not hesitate to contact me for any inquiry by sending an e-mail to: danallon2011(at)gmail.com
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I am an artist, writer, musician, and teacher. This website shows projects I have had the privilege of showing in exhibitions and book fairs worldwide, as well as publishing on digital platforms and in print. My practice is diverse: graphic novels, prints and drawings, concerts, albums, installations, and sound works. My practice branches to other fields of knowledge, such as medicine, psychiatry, political science, and gender studies.
Artist Statement
At the core of my artistic pursuit lies a strong desire for storytelling. I work like a writer: first comes visual and textual research, then a text is written, followed by development in the studio, resulting in a visual project that sometimes branches into performance or sound and music. I use stories from my life and the lives of my dearest, combined with historical narratives, interweaved into documentary/mockumentary new tales. I aspire to keep them humorous, grotesque, vulnerable, and universal. I use literature genres such as memoir, autobiography, historical fiction, and essays, to challenge the spectator's most fundamental perceptions about where life and art meet (in other words - "is this story about you true? Has it happened to you?" is a frequent question I get).
I like to describe my practice as between "putting myself on stage" and "under siege." For example, I use my medical files, military and financial documents, authentic phone calls, and archival footage, among other to create a trustworthy setting for the spectators. Sometimes, I would be the artwork itself on-site to add "authenticity." To that, I add fictional details (for example, an alternative fact that my grandmother had an affair with Franco from Spain, or that my aunt was a transgender singer in Brazil, or moving into a gallery for a week portraying a prisoner and a warden the entire time in silence), blurring hierarchies between truth and fiction. Eventually, isn't our life just the story we tell ourselves?