Meet Danny Augustine

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danny Augustine. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danny below.

Hi Danny, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

From a very young age, I’ve always been intuitive, with a sense of purpose and understanding of the world around me. There was always a drive within myself to overcome whatever life had in store, and it is through these experiences that I’ve grown to be resilient to other people’s opinions and actions that don’t align with my self-worth and purpose. 

 

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I began my artistic career as the founding member of the visual art major at Alderson-Broaddus University and later earned my B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My first painting was exhibited in the West Virginia Governor’s Juried Exhibit held within the state’s museum. Shortly afterward, I was juried into the annual catalogue New Art International by Book Art Press. Through out the years, I have participated in numerous exhibitions on a national and international level, In which, had the honor of being named one of the most compelling artists. CURVE Lebanon’s most prominent art, architecture, design, and lifestyle magazine wrote an article featuring my ink drawings, and shortly after GQ British magazine did the same. My most recent exhibitions were in South Korea, and I’m currently weighing on a decision to exhibit in London.

When I begin a drawing, my mind wanders across an internal landscape of memories and experiences. Questions that are difficult to answer in the rational world arise in my mind. Growing up under the unwanted spotlight of my mother’s schizophrenia, along with the abusive hand of an uncle, left me feeling as if I were being examined silently. 

To me, my artwork is a means to express my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I work intuitively, creating textural environments while merging 24-hour rolling news, music, and everyday life experiences. The end results are environments that become a strong expression of my internal self. I express my feelings in every one of my individual works using the Surrealist process of Automatic Drawing. 

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three years ago, During my pop-up open studio in Chicago, I started to document my drawing process and sharing it on social media.  During this process, I would speed up my videos to fit into the allotted time for posts and I started noticing a rhythm in my motions, a dance you may even say.  Soon after starting this process, Instagram started to develop filters and allowing music clips and my short videos took on a life of their own.  As an artist, I started to gravitate to performance art, taking on the mood of the song, or just of that day.  I feel this was a natural development of my artistic process.  Before I was an Artist, I was a stage actor, and before that, a singer, and I feel I’m pulling on all these skills naturally.

There is a quote I really love by Dolly Parton ‘It’s ok to change dreams in a middle of a stream”. I truly feel, all my dreams are all streaming together.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

Currently I’m envisioning an exhibition where my reels and drawings will be shown together. I’m not really sure how I would do this, but I feel it would be of an immersive exhibition. The hardest part of this process would be the use of music rights and making sure everyone is being paid fairly. I’m always open to ideas and collaborations and feel when I’m ready the right people will be placed on my path.

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