ARTIST STATEMENT

I have a deep concern about human behavior and the destruction of our planet. My concern leads me to create art works that address the viewer beyond boundaries of culture and nations. My pieces are intended to make us think about our collective place and to move us to accept responsibility for our actions to one another and to the Earth.

RESUME

BORN: Dominican Republic

RESIDES: Miami, FL USA

REPRESENTED BY: The Art Place Wynwood, Art Rouge, Miami FL USA. The West Branch Gallery, Stowe, VT, USA. Atelier Phileas, Paris, France. La Galeria, Dominican Republic.

PRIZES AND RECOGNITIONS

1998 - First Prize, Painting – E. Leon Jimenez Biennial, Santiago, Dominican Republic.

1990 - Award, Painting - National Biennial of Visual Arts of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1990 - First Prize, Sculpture - E. Leon Jimenez Biennial, Santiago, Dominican Republic.

1990 - Selected as one of the ‘Ninety Sculptors of the XX Century’ by Housatonic Museum, Connecticut, USA.

1997 - Selected to create two sculptures in bronze. Quetteville, France.

1981 - Invited to the National Biennial, Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1981 - Biennial of Medellin, Colombia, with the Group Geac.

1982 - Invited Artist in residence Altos de Chavon, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

1988 - Invited artist resident in Altos de Chavon, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

1995 - Invited for a print shop by Robert Blackborn Studio, NY, USA. FUTURE

EXHIBITIONS

2011 - 'Art Rouge' – Miami, FL, USA.

2011 - The West Branch Gallery – Stowe, VT, USA

2011 - 'Atelier Phileas' – Paris, France. SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010 - 'Triennial', Dominican Republic.

2010 - ‘Obras Recientes’ - The Art Place, Miami, FL, USA.

2009 - ‘Repudio’ -The Art Place, Miami, FL, USA.

2008 - The West Branch Gallery, Stowe, VT, USA.

2008 - ‘Furiosos’ - The Art Place, Stowe VT, USA.

2007 - ‘Rabiosos’ - The Art Place, Burlington, VT, USA.

2006 - ‘Espacio’ - The Art Place Burlington, VT, USA.

2004 - ‘Furiosos’ - El Espacio, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

2003 - ‘Obras Recientes’ - El Espacio, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1999 - ‘Exteriores e Interiores’ - La Galeria, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1998 - ‘DG’- L’espace Chateau Dum, Paris, France.

1998 - ‘DANILO GONZALEZ’ - Musee du Colombier, Paris, France.

1998 - ‘El Otro Lado del Corazon’, La Galeria, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1997 - ‘DANILO GONZALEZ’ – J L Watts Galerie, Paris, France.

1997 - ‘Furiosos’ - Atelier Phileas, Paris, France.

1996 - ‘Humanismo’ - Casa de Francia, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1995 - ‘Esculturas, Pinturas, Dibujos y Grabados’ - La Galeria, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1994 - ’Presente/Pasado’- Colegio de Artistas Plasticos, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1993 - ‘Ecologia’ - Galeria de La UCE, San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic.

1993 - ’Homenaje a la Vida’ - Centro de Arte Nouveau, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1991 - ‘D G’ - Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1991 - ‘Individual’ - Danart Studio, NJ, USA.

1990 - ‘Tetrico I-XXX’ - Centro deArte Nouveau, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1988 - Artista en residecia, Altos de Chavon, La Romana ,Dominican Republic. 1984 - ‘Danilo Gonzalez’ - El Ince Art Gallery, Caracas, Venezuela.

1984 - ‘Danilo Gonzalez’ - Cesar Rangifo Gallery, La Victoria Museo de Arte de Maracay, Venezuela.

1983 - ‘Danilo Gonzalez’, Nouveau Art Center, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1983 - Artist in resident, Altos de Chavon, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 - '2Expressionists', The Art Place, Miami, Fl USA.

2012 - 'Three Faces', The Art Place Wynwood, Miami, Fl USA.

2008-11 - Art Basel

2011- 'Reversa', The Art Place, Miami, FL USA, La Vega, DR.

2011- Mia Art Fair

2011 - Art Palm Beach Art Fair “ The Forest”

2010 - Art Americas - 'The Gruen Projec't, Miami, FL, USA.

2008-10 - West Branch Gallery, Stowe, VT, USA.

2009- The Art Place Wynwood, Miami FL, USA.

2008 - The Art PlaceWynwood, Danilo Gonzalez Art District, Miami, FL, USA.

2005 - 07 - 'Art Hop', Burlington, VT, USA

2001 - 'EL ESPACIO ’Dispararte’ - Danilo Gonzalez/ Jhonny Bonnely, Dominican Republic.

2000 - 'Dominican Cultural Festival', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1999 - 'National Biennial', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1999 - 'Virgen Maria', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1998 - 'Biennial E. Leon Jimenez', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1998 - ‘La Altagracia” - Evo Art Gallery, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1997 - 'The Caribbean and Central America Biennial', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1997 - 'Arawak Art Gallery', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1997 - 'Visual Art MAM', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1997 - 'Salon Art Ales', Musee du Colombiers, France.

1996 - 'XVI Biennial of E. Leon Jimenes', Santiago, Dominican Republic.

1996 - 'Bienal de Grabado', Mexico Domec, Mexico.

1996 - 'Cinco Caras', Altos de Chavon, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

1996 - 'Art Contest, Barcelo', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1996 - 'Sculpture Art Contest', Prats Ventos, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1996 - 'Painting Art Contest', CCE, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1995 - 'Bank Agricola', Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1995 - ‘Testimonio de una Epoca’ - Casa de Francia, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1995 - Arawak Art Gallery, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1994 - Museum of Modern Art Biennial, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1994 - E. Leon Jimenez Biennial, Santiago, Dominican Republic.

1994 - Sculpture Art Contest, Prats Ventos, CCE, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1992 - Museum of Modern Art Biennial, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1992 - 500 Yolas, Hostos Art Gallery, NY, USA.

1991 - ”90 Sculptors of the XX Century” Housatonic Museum of Connecticut, USA.

1990 - Colectiva del Colegio de Artistas Plasticos Dominicano.

1990 - E. Leon Jimenez Biennial, Santiago, Dominican Republic.

1990 - Museum of Modern Art Biennial, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1990 - ”Una Vision Hacia el Caribe” – Paris, France.

1990 - “Dominican Artist in the Exile” – MAM, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic SD, RD.

1988 - Altos de Chavon, La Romana, Dominican Republic.

1988 - Visual Art Festival – MAM, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1982 - Expo Cotal, Casa de Bastidas, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1981 - National Biennial, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1981 - Medellin Biennial, Colombia.

1980 - E. Leon Jimenez Biennial, Santiago Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

.............................................................................................................................

ESSAYS

Danilo began his life and education in the Dominican Republic and lived in Paris, and New York before establishing with the West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe VT. He has worked in many mediums over his 25 year career, including performance art, sculpture, and painting. His works have been shown extensively across the United States, and in France, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Belgium, Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia. Gonzalez’s works reside in the permanent collections of the Housatonic Museum of Connecticut, Musèe de Colombie in France, the Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art) in the Dominican Republic, El Centro Leon, El Centro de Arte de la Victoria at the Museo Soto, and the Museo del Dibujo among others. Gonzalez’s work was shown in an exhibition of the Ninety Sculptors of the Twentieth Century at the Housatonic Museum of Connecticut with such sculptors as Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, and Isamu Noguchi. Gonzalez combines his admiration of painters Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Rene Magritte with his exploration of the roots of civilization. Gonzalez sees similarities across cultures that have always connected humans; he builds on these connections and imagines the shape of civilizations to come. Gonzalez’s works are a kind of visual puzzle, inviting us in with dimensional shapes and forms we recognize, but disorienting us once inside. On first glance, these paintings are iconic and simple. Given further attention, each element gains complexity-- a rope sagging between buildings, a ladder that doesn’t touch the ground, a road that winds through skyscrapers. Each painting suggests intersecting meanings and references. Gonzalez gives us art with enduring interest, inviting us to frequent these whimsical spaces, and find new connections each time we do.

- Amy Ran, West Branch Gallery.

Danilo Gonzalez is an artist with an international sensibility who strives to create art works that address the viewer across boundaries of culture and nations. His pieces are intended to make us think about our collective place on the planet and to move us to accept responsibility for our actions to one another and to the earth itself. Gonzalez has been making art since as a child he carved small statues. Born in La Vega in the Dominican Republic, Gonzalez began his formal training in Santo Domingo at the Escuela de Bellas Artes and the Instituto Estudiantes Superiores. Later, while living in Paris, he took courses at the Louvre. He followed this same pattern in New York by studying at the Art Students’ League. He has studied with printmaker Robert Blackburn and worked with kinetic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. It is as a painter that he most regularly shows, but he is also a printmaker, and he has not lost his interest in sculpture. His works can be found in several collections. Most recently the three dimensional pieces have been installations using found objects. Gonzalez’s art assaults the viewer and demands attention and response. Strong flat planes of bright color, unusual shapes arranged in striking patterns, unexpected groupings of objects almost always placed into a clearly defined space are devices that Gonzalez employs in his paintings, graphics and sculptural compositions to grab and hold our glance. The pieces are not intended to preach. They do not have a specific message that we need to tease out of them. They are instead designed to make us question both the image and ourselves. These are not just abstract forms. We can often recognize what is in front of us, a face, a torso, a structure of some type, a ladder, but what are we to make of them? It is in the process of pondering these features and their relationships that we begin to discern the artist’s underlying concern. No matter what device he uses to engage us, Gonzalez is consistent in the issue that he wants us to confront, our relationships to the planet and to one another. As we give a meaning to the relationships of the elements in the art before us, we may also begin to ask more meaningful questions of ourselves. The interactive quality of Gonzalez’s production may come out of his early experience in theater and dance. The paintings, graphics and sculptures have a performance quality to them as they ask us to work with them much as a theatrical piece requires that we respond both to what the performers do and to our understanding of why they do it. So Gonzalez’s paintings, prints and installations invite us to consider more deeply what we see. What is the person thinking whose face is in front of us? What is the mess on top of the soaring tower? Why do only some of the ladders reach to the ground? Why does the dome of a skull emerge from a block that might be a building? Though Gonzalez is concerned about making art that fascinates the mind, he has not thrown aside a concern with the visual excitement that paint, line and sculpture can awaken. He carefully chooses colors, manipulates the shapes and molds the forms to keep our eyes interested. The surfaces have seductive qualities that allow the works to delight the eyes even as they force the brain to ponder what they are saying. Gonzalez is a well established artist whose work can be found in many collections. He has lived in Paris and New York and has spent extended periods of time in Venezuela and Mexico. He has now relocated to Vermont. Here he continues to explore the themes of our relationships with each other and with the planet, and the present exhibition offers us a chance to see a selection of his newest paintings.

- William E. Mierse, Professor, Art History, University of Vermont