About the Artist
Artist Statement
As an artist, I have engaged in a decades-long exploration of natural elements with a more recent focus on microscopic and oceanic imagery. My goal is to present works that blur the imagined borders between the perceived physical entity and its more mysterious underlying reality. In my photographs, I will “hybridize” subject-matter---botanical forms with zoological beings, the inorganic or inanimate organic with the animated organic---which I may distort or otherwise manipulate to express the dynamics of life unobserved or unrecognized. I may make allusions pointing to human constructs such as the meaning of time and space, utilizing images from the microscope’s revealed universe to attempt to cut away the borders between the inner world and outer world, the “insignificant” and significant. Through this refocusing of lenses, I hope to create visions of environmental cohesion, of interconnectedness, and perhaps invite and encourage change in the way we approach our relationship with our natural environment and planet.
About Dana Montlack
Dana Montlack is an Interdisciplinary Biospheric Artist, researcher and educator utilizing her decades-long exploration of natural elements to bridge the worlds of art and science through a unique style of layered imagery centering on the environment. Her groundbreaking work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, as well as featured in both private and public spaces, including the Whitney Marine Biology Research Center; Atlantis The Palm, Dubai; Scripps Memorial Hospital and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.
With her unique vision and process, Dana is a leader in the area of mixed media montage. She uses photography, drawing, maps, and scientific data in a form of composite artistry that has defied conventional artistic categories, creating innovative techniques that bring together new and traditional technologies. Her work explores and presents different topics in the environment through layered composite imagery, using microscopes and scanners to capture images that are not easily seen by the naked eye, to showcase the natural world and the role humans play in it.
Through the decades, Dana’s work has been embraced by both the art and scientific communities where, in addition to being featured in museums and galleries around the globe, she had the honor of working with esteemed scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other leading organizations. In 2022, Dana was awarded a Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant from the University of Georgia, which was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where she visually explored the impacts of a changing climate on the Georgia coast – with her resulting photographic art showcased during the summer of 2023 at the University of Columbus - ILLGES Gallery.
In addition to her work as an artist, Dana teaches Visual Arts and Contemporary Art History at Georgia State University. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California Santa Cruz and her Master of Fine Arts in Mixed Media from Otis Parsons School of Art and Design, and she is an active member of a number of professional organizations, including Art Table Leadership, College Art Association and the Science-Art Collaboration.