Daniel Greenfield

Project Description

Daniel Greenfield

Artist Bio

Daniel Greenfield (Venezuelan, 1984) explores themes of identity, place and memory. He attempts to recreate ideas about home and belonging through fictive landscapes and imagined spaces. Exploring the relationship between city living, alienation and psychological displacement, his sculptures and drawings attempt to depict a fantastical, impossible architecture forged from various modernist references. With these tropes, the artist’s goal is to construct a seemingly cogent, structurally stable environment, which, in turn, would be threatened by collapse or a post-apocalyptic vision. His work is situated halfway between building and ruin.

Artist Statement

Distance: 2,109 miles – 3,394 kilometers

I grew up between Caracas and New York. From a very early age, I remember being called the ‘gringo’ whilst in Venezuela and conversely, the ‘venezu-alien’ when visiting the United States. This compartmentalized upbringing or cultural divide is where my work situates itself. Trained as an architect, I am inspired by the social histories architecture can imbue to personal experience, geographical memory and collective histories. Through drawing and sculpture, I attempt to recreate ideas about home and belonging through fictive landscapes and imagined spaces. My Venezuelan, American, Jewish and Queer identities are in question and my work is a way to map and navigate this complex cultural terrain. Grandson to Eastern European Nazi refugees, I am interested in defining these three queries: How do we trace diaspora? How do we measure displacement? And How do we define belonging.