BIOGRAPHY
Dana-Marie Bullock is a Jamaican-born interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her work encompasses painting, collage, photography, and installation. Following her studies in Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Bullock studied Fine Arts with a specialization in painting at The Art Students League of New York. Currently, she is completing her MFA in Painting and Drawing at Pratt Institute.
Bullock has received multiple awards at various shows in New York City, along with media coverage in both the United States and Jamaica. In 2019, Bullock exhibited at the National Gallery of Jamaica and one of her works remains on display at the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport in Jamaica. She is the 2024 recipient of Pratt Institute's, Oxbow residency award. Bullock also completed a masterclass with artist, Mickalene Thomas and curator, Jasmine Wahi at Anderson Ranch in 2024.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice investigates images as sites of group identity and unconscious communication. Working primarily in painting, I examine the material bodily foundations of political concepts like feminism, racial equality, and class, tracing their appearances in objects, photographs, and artistic movements like abstraction. Ultimately, my work seeks to develop its own visual language that can express sensations and realities that defy vocalization, taking advantage of painting's status as a medium that also conveys the story of how it is made.
My current body of work explores the tensions and harmonies between Western, Eastern, African, and Black modes of representation and abstraction. This chapter focuses on my experience growing up in Jamaica, and its works trace aspects of Jamaican and Caribbean culture that are quietly embedded in Jamaican architecture, domestic life, and community through unconventional materials like zinc and burlap. These works about Jamaica speak to upsetting gaps in wealth and gender inequality that have long affected the island as well as its rich history of spiritualism and political resistance by drawing attention to topics like abortion, menstruation, illness, and sexuality.
The paintings in this series also speak to my diverse array of influences, which includes artists such as Emma Amos, Judy Chicago, Juanita McNeely, Ana Mendieta, Doreen Lynette Garner, and David Hammonds who collectively challenge artistic conventions toward political ends. Many of these artists similarly investigate material history and their works illuminate phenomena like objectification, racial and gender discrimination, historical omissions, and medical injustice.