March 2013: Dayna Collins

Dayna is a painter working in layers with plaster, paint, texture and wax. Words, scritches, and scratches embellish the pieces. She builds up a surface and then tears a portion away, never revealing all of what came before. Her title for the show is “Beneath the Surface: Searching for Memory”. Dayna says “Memory works the same way; we add to it, leave bits behind, create new stories, neglect small details. But what happens when we begin to lose our memory? How do we piece together the past?” She intentionally utilizes the concept of pentimento, where traces and shadows of earlier layers of paintings are revealed. Dayna invites you on an archeological dig, searching through the rubble of layers, excavating color, texture, and what came before. She is inspired by texture on old, crumbling buildings, aged and decaying cemeteries, the patina on rusty metal, and attempts to replicate these surfaces in her work. Look closely and you'll see word fragments and decomposing texture.