Spotlight Artist

Dana Schein

MFA Annual
Artist profile photo

Kishkes

Abstract painting of a person with green skin playing a red violin.

oil on canvas

Graceful Ghost Rag (After William Bolcom)

Nude figure playing piano with scattered sheet music and a ghostly face in the background.

oil on canvas

Plankwalk

Person in red shoes pushing a piano up a ramp against a blue background

oil on canvas

Featured in New American Paintings1 / 3

Artist Statement

 My paintings play with a tension between hiding and communicating. The images depict characters breaking pianos, grieving over violins, committing acts of betrayal, and experiencing bouts of ecstasy and terror. Pulling from my own history as a musician, I am interested in conveying psychological states through narrative and destabilized compositions. Each painting portrays solitary figures struggling against the edges of the canvas and the instrument at hand, sometimes resisting and other times merging. Through rhythmic brushwork and bold marks, the paintings emit cacophonous sound despite their inherent silence. These images pose questions about inner realities, creative struggles, loneliness, and divinity. Ultimately, I regard musical instruments as conduits for communion between the self and higher realms—thus pointing to the limitations of language and themes of spirituality and authorship.

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