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What is Maintained: A Statement on the Art of Daniel Minter
 
 

Daniel Minter's art is an art of reclamation. His images -- in painting, in sculpture -- call back the beauty of our darkest skins, the plush of our lips, the fullness of our sight.   It is an art of close attention. Almost hyper-real. A realism edged forward to its most essential characteristic -- spirit. Wide oval eyes ever-watchful from all the realms. This is mystery speaking a plain language.   Here spirit and flesh combine on canvas, in wood, in iron and bronze. Minter's figures are both history and myth. His bodies, big-boned and full-labored, have an uncommon delicacy. A heavy grace.   Like Bynum's binding song in August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Minter's art is an art in service to tradition, in service to recollected integrity, a way to get whole. A way to revision the whole that is ever-present. The whole that never left.   The tools of this work are many: culture, memory, vision. The wide reach of history's long, sinewy arm. The quick blade of discernment. The gesture in the middle of something. The metal of what is concealed. The saved thing.   Minter's art is a protective art. And an art of protection. Firm lines. Crossed roads. Boxes. Square things. And the open circles of offering. The discipline of love.   This is the work of the guardian, the interpreter, the-one-who-watches-at-the-gate. Giving us back the ground we grew out of. Reclaiming it. Re-entering it. The fertile place. Source of our sweetness and struggle. All Africa in diaspora. Stony cities and the pushed rhythm of fields. Oceans. Winds. Our New World routes. Our New World wisdom. Our strength. Our salt.     Dr. Rachel Elizabeth Harding

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Daniel Minter
Artist Statement/Bio

Daniel Minter's art work is a study of memory. The many ways in which memory is embedded into our past, present and future. It is the interconnection of time that contains the essence of what memory has left behind. These concepts are the inspiration for Daniel Minter's paintings and sculpture.   Using archetypes, symbols, icons and folklore steeped in the context of African-American and African-Diasporic culture, Minter creates a visual vocabulary. Metaphors take shape out of chairs, houses, snakes and trees infusing the energy of emotion, action and place to everyday life, everyday being.   Born in Ellaville, a small rural community in southern Georgia, in 1963. He began to demonstrate a love of art at an early age. Upon graduating high school, he moved to Atlanta, where he then graduated from The Art Institute of Atlanta. Shortly after, Minter began working professionally as an illustrator, arts educator, painter and sculptor. His work has taken him from Atlanta, Seattle, Salvador, Brazil to Brooklyn, New York, Chicago and Portland, ME where he currently resides.

 

DANIEL MINTER Born, 1961, Ellaville, Georgia   PO Box 3085 Portland, ME 04104-3085

phone (917) 403-5545 email: danielminter@ameritech.net

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2001    Buell Children's Museum, Bolder, Colorado 1997     Bambara Gallery, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1996  "Crossing Paths" MIA Gallery, Seattle, WA 1994    MIA Gallery, Seattle, WA           "Mixed Media Paintings on Carved Wood," Northview Gallery, Portland,OR 1993  "Cross Currents," Index Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA 1992    MIA Gallery, Seattle, WA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS  2003    "DOCET - Idee e materiali per l'educazione e la didattica"             "II Pianeta Variopinto - Illustratori dal Mondo"  Bolonga, Italia 2001    "The National Black Fine Art Show", NY., NY" 2000     "Edwin T. Pratt Memorial Exhibit," Bon Marche, Seattle, WA             "The National Black Fine Art Show", NY,NY 1999     "Edwin T. Pratt Memorial Exhibit," Pratt Gallery at CoCA, Seattle, WA             "The National Black Fine Art Show", NY, NY 1998     "Altered Beliefs", City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA              "BWAC Pier Show 6", Brooklyn, New York 1997     "Twenty Years in the Arts: Selected Works by Pratt Alumni", Seattle, Wa              Mia Gallery Artist: A Group Exhibition, Seattle, Wa 1996     "Edwin T. Pratt Memorial Exhibit," Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, WA              "Matter of Colors V: Generations," The Seafirst Gallery, Seattle, WA 1995     "In A World of Their Own: 200 years of illustrated childrens books,"           Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA              "The Big A Show," 800 East Gallery and The Art Factory, Atlanta, GA              "A Matter of Colors IV: Heritage Links," Pacific Arts Center, Hausberg Gallery, Seattle,WA, 1994      Galleria Casa do Indio, Salvador-Bahia, Brazil               "Cultura Negra Atraves Das Artes" Museu da Cidade, Salvador-Bahia,Brazil                 Galleria Portal da Cor, Salvador-Bahia, Brazil               "I Bienam-Bienal Internacional Afro-Americana de Cultura," Museu da Cidade, Salvador- Bahia, Brazil              "Bienal Internacional Afro-Americana de Cultura," Universidade Federal Da         Bahia e a Escola De Belas Artes,                    Salvador-Bahia, Brazil               "A Matter of Colors III," Pacific Arts Center, Seattle, WA               "Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americans," Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA 1993      "The Art of Microsoft," The Henry Gallery; University of Washington, Seattle, WA                "Heads or Tails," MIA Gallery, Seattle, WA                "African-American Eclectic," Security Pacific Gallery, Seattle, WA                "Edwin T. Pratt Memorial Exhibit," Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, WA 1992    "Point of View," Hughley Gallery & Objects, National Black Arts Festival,  Atlanta, GA

GRANTS/AWARDS 2000     Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award, "Seven Spools of Thread" 1999     Texas Blue Bonnet Book Award, "The Riches of Oseola McCarty,"             NCSS Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award-The Riches of Oseola McCarty, A W &Co. 1997     Seattle Arts Commision, Seattle Artists 1997 Visual Arts Category              Artist -in- Residence, Tacoma Art Museum              Artist -in- Residence, Pacific Arts Center 1995     Childrens Book of the Year; "The Foot Warmer and the Crow", Child Study Childrens Book Committee, Bank Street College 1994     Travel Grants Fund for Artists, National Endowment for the Arts and Arts International.

 

CORPORATE and PERMANENT COLLECTIONS: Microsoft Corporation, Seattle, WA The African American Heritage Museum, Seattle, WA Seattle Arts Commission

PUBLIC ART: Sixteen Paths, Seattle Arts Commission Art That Heals, Seattle Art Museum Lavizzo Water Play Park, Seattle, WA

PUBLISHED WORK/BOOKS: "New Year Be Coming" illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Katharine Boling. Albert Whitman & Company "Seven Spools of Thread" illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Angela Shelf Medearis. Albert Whitman & Company "Bubber Goes to Heaven," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Arna Bontemps. Oxford University Press  "The Riches of Oseola McCarty," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Evelyn Coleman. Albert Whitman & Company  "The Foot Warmer and the Crow," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Evelyn Coleman. Macmillan  Publishing

EDUCATION:  1981 AA Visual Communications, Art Institute of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Leatha Simmons Mitchell. "Fresh Paint! National Scene," The International Review of African American Art. Hampton University Museum. Volume 13, Number 4, 1997 Regina Hackett. "Old Stories, new forms," Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 8,1996 Charles H. Rowell. "Telling My Own Story: An Interview with Daniel Minter," Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and Letters. University of VA. Volume 18, Number 2, 1995 Regina Hackett. "Heritage of Color is celebrated in arts center show," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 27, 1995 Cesar Romero. "Bienal Afro Americana," A Tarde: Journal da Bahia, Nov. 1995 Ivan de Oliveriera. "I Bienal Internacional de Cultura Afro-Americana agita Salvador," Folha de Sao Paulo, August 1994 Justino Marinho e Cesar Romero. "Tudo pronto para Bienal Internacional AfroAmericana," A Tarde: Journal da Bahia, August. 1994 Melinda Bargreen. "Exhibit Celebrates African-American Art," The Seattle Times, February 12, 1994 Regina Hackett. "Artists explore Seattle-Africa tie," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 1994 Pamela K. Bomboy. "The Foot Warmer and the Crow" School Library Journal, November 1994 "The Foot Warmer and the Crow," The Bulletin of the Center for Childrens Books, December 1994 Robin Updike. "Fall Array," The Seattle Times, September 8, 1994 Regina Hackett. "Frye takes two big steps forward," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 14, 1994 "The Foot Warmer and the Crow," Publishers Weekly, September 26, 1994 Regina Hackett. "The Art of Microsoft: Henry Gallery's new show displays a corporate collection that takes  chances," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July, 1994 Betty-Carol Sellen w/Cynthia Johnson. "20th Century American Folk, Self Taught and Outsider Art,"  Neal-Schuman  Publishers Inc. NYC October 1993 Clarence D. White. "Black Men/Image Reality," Art Papers, January/February 1992 Catherine Fox. "Artists share responses to disturbing realities," The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution, Sept. 1991

 

 
Experience
Freelance Illustrator/Graphic Artist (1988 to present)
 
Children's Book Illustration:
"New Year Be Coming" illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Katharine Boling. Albert Whitman & Company
"Seven Spools of Thread" illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Angela Shelf Medearis. Albert Whitman & Company
"Bubber Goes to Heaven," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Arna Bontemps. Oxford University Press
"The Riches of Oseola McCarty," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Evelyn Coleman. Albert Whitman & Company
"The Foot Warmer and the Crow," illus. by Daniel Minter. Text by Evelyn Coleman. Macmillan  Publishing NYC
 
Teaching
DuSable Museum of African American History.
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Youth Art Program- digital animation.
Kennedy Center Education Department, Multicultural Children's Book Festival In School Program.
Experience Arts Camp 2001, Master Artist, Experience Music Project.
African - New World Studies Teachers Institute. Florida International University
Pratt Fine Art Center-Illustration Technique and Basic to Intermediate drawing.
St. Theresa Elementary School
African-American Academy
Pacific Arts Center
Cornish College of the Arts
 
Conceptual Illustration
 
Clients include: Communications Channels Magazine, Time Warner Books, Health Quest Magazine, Atlanta Magazine, Career Design Software, Corporate Personnel Consultants  and Temporaries, Key Personnel Services, Southern Company Services, Central Area Development Association, 911 Media Arts, T2 Medical, Bug-Vac Inc., Microsoft Corporation.
 
Computer  Graphics and Illustration
 
Clients: Microsoft Bookshelf, Image Electronic, Inc., Alden Design, Data Slide, Spectrographika, Sirtec, Dark Savant and "Search for the Cosmic Bane," created and animated characters for computer role playing games.
Insect Model (props)
Short film, "Mona's Pets." Created plastic insect models as well as handeled live insects for various scenes.
 
 
Graphic Design Specialist, Southern Company Services
Produced graphics via computer and mechanical methods. Produced company multimedia presentations, newsletters and books, employing all graphic art techniques including freehand and computer illustration, cartooning, typesetting, photography and darkroom graphics. Maintained various research activities in keeping abreast of current graphic technologies. Coordinated with outside graphics vendors, typesetters, designers, photographers, printers, illustrators, and computer and media specialist. Produced professional  graphics products under tight deadline situations. Designed and analyzed business related forms for technical accuracy and performed quality and standards checks.