Senior Project: Between Me and Them

Here is my artist statement:

My greatest inspirations have always shared one aspect in common: dramatic narrative. This consistency of emotional content has always permeated the creations that fuel my passion for art. A story will hold your attention and secure itself in your memory like nothing else can. Stories compose our greatest myths, religions and philosophies. It is this belief in the power of narrative that drives me to tell my own stories. I am striving to honestly reveal qualities that are unique unto to my experience and my thoughts. This desire represents a major component of my goals in visual art, as well as in my relatively new passion for writing.

This body of work represents my first step towards exploring my own self-generated narratives and interests. Every image presented corresponds to a particular written work that I have authored. The written pieces range from biographical accounts, to ensembles of real world inspiration, to straight fiction. All of the artwork was created with the text in mind and with the goal of designing a fully illustrated, tangible book. The color palettes, textures, figures and full gamut of design decisions should reflect the atmospheres, emotions, and details presented in the narratives. My intention was to create something comprehensive that through its many different facets and through its narrative content could be appreciated on a timeless, human level.

Kyler Dannels

Here are selections from the body of my thesis work. The color paintings are mostly acrylic on illustration board and the grayscale images are all black and white ink on Gray Rives BFK paper:

Here are some quick shots of the book that I made. I'm going to shortly make this available online and if anyone is interested in purchasing it. I also still have copies available here if anyone is on campus and wants one. They are 20 dollars a piece and 87 pages in full color. They contain short stories and poems all written by myself, that all artwork is based on. I designed the whole book myself in Adobe InDesign with some help from my teacher Mike Hodges and the wizard graphic designer Willy Diaz.







Thank you so much to everyone who came to the show and especially to those of you who have seen fit to buy a copy of the book. It's not perfect, but I hope you enjoy it.