Bio
Deana Grisell was born (1988) and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio where she attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts (1997-2005) from the fourth through eleventh grade as a visual arts major. There she studied for several years under working artists and twin sisters Adrian and Althea Thompson. The Thompson's high expectations for craftsmanship and fluidity have profoundly influenced Deana's overall aesthetic. After high-school she got her associate's degree in Liberal Arts at the University of Cincinnati's Clermont College (2009) where she met ceramics artist and instructor Lisa Siders-Kenney. Deana graduated from UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) in 2013 with a BFA in Fine Arts and is currently finishing a bachelor's degree in Psychology at the University of Cincinnati's McMicken College.
Statement
I tend to use my artwork as a visual aide to my understanding of my own various philosophical quandaries. For example, I am very interested in exploring the connections between our perceived reality and the sub-consciousness of intrinsic existence. Everyone is connected yet everyone is confined within his or her own consciousness; it is the ultimate irony of human sentience. Everything we do is an attempt to hold the contradiction together- to maintain sanity in the face of a paradoxical existence. I make works that attempt to confront the persistence of this necessary truth.
My work generally leaps between various levels of abstraction and realism. I like working with repetition as well as figuratively to explore the human factor within the fractal nature of existence. Subtle and tiny details are given just as much attention as the overall piece.
Simultaneously, my artistic work to reunite aesthetics with philosophy has become intertwined with my studies of the subconscious and its biomechanics, which ultimately has led me to explore fractal geometry as the driving force behind human consciousness.
How do you convey understanding? It takes infinitely longer to verbalize a thought than it does to think. Rather than trying to express a thought or idea, I want to try to convey the comprehension of that thought or idea. Verbal communication can be restricting, and interpretation as a standard for art degrades our overall experience of it. Freedom from interpretation allows for a pure experience of existence.
My work generally leaps between various levels of abstraction and realism. I like working with repetition as well as figuratively to explore the human factor within the fractal nature of existence. Subtle and tiny details are given just as much attention as the overall piece.
Simultaneously, my artistic work to reunite aesthetics with philosophy has become intertwined with my studies of the subconscious and its biomechanics, which ultimately has led me to explore fractal geometry as the driving force behind human consciousness.
How do you convey understanding? It takes infinitely longer to verbalize a thought than it does to think. Rather than trying to express a thought or idea, I want to try to convey the comprehension of that thought or idea. Verbal communication can be restricting, and interpretation as a standard for art degrades our overall experience of it. Freedom from interpretation allows for a pure experience of existence.