Cynthia Daignault

Death By Gun, 2018

Cynthia Daignault
Delia's Gone, 2020
oil on linen
Dimensions variable: 24 parts

each 24 x 18 in (61 x 45.7 cm)
CD095

Daignault is known for an ambitious and wide-ranging painting practice, exploring the contemporary American experience through a diversity of subjects. The breadth of her imagery ranges from observational landscapes to everyday objects to media imagery. Her works are often serial, side-by-side or in grids, but always rendered in an evocative, gestural style. Her continued emphasis on the artist’s hand speaks soulfully to the position of the individual facing the wide expanse of history—in turns levelheaded, amused, outraged, or mournful. Other series of more abstract and text-based works pare down portrayal to a single word against a background color, rooted in language, poetry and her practice as a writer. Daignault casts widely to select her source material, using associations and wordplay to suggest many shades of experience at once. Taken as a whole, Daignault’s work asserts painting’s continued ability to portray consciousness and memorialize history, uniting divergent subjects to depict and commemorate this fleeting moment in time.

"I think of my work as long-form painting. If a single canvas is like a photograph or poem, then those pieces are more like a film or novel. I’m interested in narrative and time-based work, and I’m experimenting with bringing those concepts and histories into painting."

– Cynthia Daignault

Cynthia Daignault
What Happened, 2018
oil on linen

overall dimensions variable

36 parts, each 10 x 10 in (25.4 x 25.4 cm)

While researching for press archives for her piece "What Happened", 2018, Daignault came across countless evidence photos of the weapons used in the significant gun crimes in America: the shooting of Malcom X, Martin Luther King, JFK, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, etc. On one hand, these crime scene images operate as neutral informational still lifes—photos cataloging an object in a police vault—and yet as with a memento mori, they also construct a haunting depiction of the American Gothic. Painting each evidence photo, she created an archive of the most famous and horrific gun events in the American psyche. The work shares a title with the famous Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece, Death by Gun, but here Daignault wanted to focus the index not on the victims of these crimes (though they are implied) but on the weapons. With her attention on the cold neutrality of tools over people, the piece is one of horror rather than empathy—a way of picturing history through the items left in its wake.

Cynthia Daignault (b. 1978, Baltimore, MD) has presented solo exhibitions and projects at many major museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, MASS MoCA, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and White Columns. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art the Blanton Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Daignault is a regularly published author, and her writings have been published in a range of publications. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a 2016 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Award, a 2011 Rema Hort Foundation Award, and a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellowship. She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

Slide-Show

Slide-Show Thumbnails

Cynthia&nbsp;Daignault
Death by Gun (Or April 14, 1865; November 22, 1963; November 24, 1963; February 21, 1965; August 1, 1966; April 4, 1968; June 3, 1968; June 5, 1968; November 27, 1978; December 8, 1980; September 25, 1982; July 18, 1984; August 20, 1986; October 16, 1991; April 8, 1994; March 30, 1995; September 7, 1996; March 9, 1997; April 20, 1999; July 29, 1999; February 20, 2005; November 6, 2006; April 16, 2007; April 3, 2009; November 5, 2009,m; February 26, 2012; July 20, 2012; August 9, 2014; November 22, 2014; June 17, 2015; July 23, 2015; October 1, 2015; June 12, 2016; July 6, 2016; October 1, 2017; December 14, 2012; December 2, 2015; November 5, 2017; February 14, 2018), 2018
oil on linen
dimensions variable
CD020

&nbsp;

Cynthia Daignault
Death by Gun (Or April 14, 1865; November 22, 1963; November 24, 1963; February 21, 1965; August 1, 1966; April 4, 1968; June 3, 1968; June 5, 1968; November 27, 1978; December 8, 1980; September 25, 1982; July 18, 1984; August 20, 1986; October 16, 1991; April 8, 1994; March 30, 1995; September 7, 1996; March 9, 1997; April 20, 1999; July 29, 1999; February 20, 2005; November 6, 2006; April 16, 2007; April 3, 2009; November 5, 2009,m; February 26, 2012; July 20, 2012; August 9, 2014; November 22, 2014; June 17, 2015; July 23, 2015; October 1, 2015; June 12, 2016; July 6, 2016; October 1, 2017; December 14, 2012; December 2, 2015; November 5, 2017; February 14, 2018), 2018
oil on linen
dimensions variable
CD020

Inquire