Dayna Thacker

breathing room, 2009, collaged paper and altered photograph, graphite  9 x14 inches

headers shall hold in the heart, 2010, collaged paper, graphite, pastel on panel, 18 x 24 inches

in your own words, 2010, collaged paper, graphite, pastel on panel,  22 x18 inches

siren call of busyness, 2010, collaged paper, graphite and pastel on panel, 24 x16 inches

first attempt at making rain, 2010, collaged paper and altered photograph, graphite,14 x 9 inches

a balancing act of selflessness, 2010, collaged paper and altered photograph, graphite, 9 x14 inches

wayfaring stranger, 2010, collaged paper and altered photograph, graphite, 9 x14 inches

some enduring spirit, 2010, collaged paper, graphite, pastel on panel, 48 x 60 inches

About The Artist

Dayna Thacker spent much of her youth in Tennessee, and received a BFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 2006. Working in collage, assemblage and installation, she uses found materials to investigate the systems we create for ourselves in order to make sense of the world and our place in it; and the connections between the physical and psychological aspects of our lives, and how they effect and shape one another. Thacker was awarded a studio space at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center for 2008-2011; she is a finalist for the Forward Arts Foundation 2010 Emerging Artist Award; and her work was featured in the 2009 Southern issue of New American Paintings.

Artist Statement

My interest lies in the systems that humans create for themselves in order to make sense of the world and our place in it. Philosophy and the various religions of the world are some of the systems that I find most fascinating, but there are many others. Science, geometry, mathematics, poetry, literature, mythology, fairy tales, music; all are the result of humans trying to puzzle out the mystery of existence, and they all describe a different part of the same story – and though the methods differ, they often reach strikingly similar conclusions. Many of these systems are complex and far-reaching, created by deep thinkers, but many are also of our own personal design, created to explain, organize or cope with situations in our individual lives.

Another aspect of my work is the difference between the conclusions we reach with the logical, reasoning, conscious part of ourselves, and the ones that appear suddenly from our intuitive subconscious. We accommodate an incredible amount of informational input these days, and very little of it is from the natural world with which we evolved. Most of it is information we ourselves have created, formulated and compounded, and the resulting blizzard of swirling facts and useless trivia is mind-boggling. Yet, although culturally we give ourselves very little time to be quiet and still, to mentally digest, our subconscious manages to take it all in and occasionally give back a flash of insight.

This process is reflected in my choice of media. Collage, assemblage and installation all utilize existing objects that are collected, taken out of context, and then reconfigured into new relationships. The collecting and sorting of those objects are methodical activities of accumulating information, whereas the recognition of meaning between two disparate objects is an intuitive occurrence.

Dayna Thacker’s Website

Dayna Thacker at the Barbara Archer Gallery

Posted by Carmelita Caruana