Daniel Clark
The Bird Cage
Clark interprets the intimate thoughts and emotions of an officer aboard Cruiser Olympia by creating a sculptural installation built with icons of American folk art and nautical history. The artist sees the Officers Shower room as a chamber of self-confrontation and reflection, where the man is stripped bare of his masking uniform and left in a vulnerable and transparent state. This shower will become a white-walled cage, containing a group of gilded eagles that spring to life from their decorative crests and manifest the mind and spirit of the officer. With this project, Clark hopes to explore the possible struggles and internal conflicts that officers aboard the ship may have experienced while separated from their lives on land.
About the Artist
Daniel Clark is an artist and designer currently earning his BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. He has a focus on painting, but his creative process expands to many other mediums and crafts. At Temple University, he was a recipient of the 2015 Diamond Research Scholar’s Grant, which funded his first major in-depth project. This culminated with his show, This Side of Main Street, featuring a body of work that explored American nostalgic culture and its relation to expectations of masculinity. His works have received awards and commendations from The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Niche Magazine. In addition to artistic projects, Clark is active in furniture design, antique restoration and historic preservation, and believes that this diversity of interests is integral to his artistic practice. He spent the 2015-16 academic year in Rome and returned to the States in April to create his installation for Artship Olympia.