Danna Ciaramitaro
-Ceramics-

Danna Ciaramitaro is a gifted painter and draftsperson who has developed an especially devoted following for her ceramic sculpture. She almost entirely abstains from speaking and is continuously involved in making art. Other than brief descriptive titles, she offers nothing by way of explanation for her artwork. Her most engrossing sculptures candidly depict human figures, often nude, engaged in mundane activities such as staring at a door, crying in the tub or shitting on a baseball cap. In these diminutive works she commands a powerful and unnerving tactlessness combining her beautifully flat and brutally frank observation with economical narratives that are at once gleeful and heart wrenching, wry and crass. 

Because of the perceived and intended provocation in the subject matter, many of these ceramics have never been exhibited before. This oversight is primarily attributable to biases inherent to the systems for supporting and exhibiting art production available to many individuals with disabilities. Although a number of the most poetic pieces from this expansive branch of her practice have already found their way into the collections of fans, a representative swath has been assembled here as a first step in bringing this body of work together, cataloging and exhibiting it free of censorship.

Danna primarily work at Soul Studio, a facilitated art studio for adults with disabilities, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

This collection was initially assembled on the occasion of ArtMile Detroit’s 2021 online art fair and will be added to as additional works are located.

–UF, June 2021