PRESS KIT 2026
Dané/
Estes
ARTIST / LOS ANGELES
UPCOMING EXHIBITON INFO
ARTIST: Dané Estes
SHOW TITLE: Alack, There Lies More Peril in Thine Eye Than Twenty of Their Swords
GALLERY: SIMCHOWITZ GALLERY
Opening: September 17, 5-8PM
DATES: September 17 – October 16, 2026
LOCATION: SIMCHOWITZ / PASADENA, CA
INFO: Dané’s Alack, There Lies More Peril in Thine Eye Than Twenty of Their Swords brings together a new body of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper investigating transformation as the fundamental condition of contemporary experience.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
(b. 1988, Rochester, NH) DANÉ IS A LOS ANGELES–BASED MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST WHOSE PRACTICE INVESTIGATES TRANSFORMATION AS THE FUNDAMENTAL CONDITION OF CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCE. WORKING ACROSS PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND WORKS ON PAPER, HE EXAMINES HOW PERCEPTION, DESIRE, AND IDENTITY ARE CONTINUALLY REORGANIZED THROUGH TIME.
ROOTED IN THE BELIEF THAT PERCEPTION IS NEVER NEUTRAL, THE WORK CONSIDERS HOW VISUAL, CULTURAL, TECHNOLOGICAL, SOCIAL, MATERIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS SHAPE THE WAYS INDIVIDUALS SEE AND CONSTRUCT THEMSELVES. THE INDIVIDUAL IS UNDERSTOOD NOT AS FIXED OR SINGULAR, BUT AS A CONTINUALLY CHANGING CONFIGURATION FORMED THROUGH ACCUMULATED EXPERIENCE AND INTERACTION WITH THE WORLD.
RATHER THAN REPRESENTING TRANSFORMATION AS A SUBJECT, DANÉ’S PRACTICE CREATES MATERIAL AND PERCEPTUAL CONDITIONS THROUGH WHICH TRANSFORMATION BECOMES PERCEPTIBLE.
Q: Many contemporary artists working with technology make explicitly digital work, but yours remains deeply physical. Was that intentional?
A: Very much so. I’m interested in the psychological effects of image culture, but I wanted the work to resist becoming screen-based or illustrative. Materiality slows perception down. The paintings and sculptures hold duration differently than digital images do. That tension between physical surfaces and technologically conditioned seeing is important to the work.
On the title
The title Alack, There Lies More Peril in Thine Eye Than Twenty of Their Swords is taken from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, spoken by Romeo during the balcony scene.
The line describes the power of Juliet’s gaze as something more dangerous than the physical threat surrounding him. The eye becomes the site where attraction, desire, vulnerability, and consequence converge.
For this exhibition, the quotation offers a way into the relationship between perception and desire. What we see is never simply received. Perception is continually shaped by memory, expectation, recognition, desire, and the systems through which experience is organized. The eye is therefore not passive; it participates in the continual reconstruction of reality.
Selected works
PAINTING FUNCTIONS AS A CENTRAL SITE OF INVESTIGATION. SURFACES ACCUMULATE, ABSORB, AND REVEAL THROUGH SUCCESSIVE PROCESSES OF APPLICATION AND REMOVAL, ALLOWING MATERIAL TO RETAIN TRACES OF WHAT HAS COME BEFORE WHILE CONTINUALLY BECOMING SOMETHING ELSE. WORKS ON PAPER EXTEND THIS INQUIRY THROUGH FRAGMENTS DRAWN FROM EARLIER PAINTINGS AND RETINAL IMAGERY, BRINGING PERCEPTION, MEMORY, AND MATERIAL HISTORY INTO RELATION. SCULPTURE APPROACHES TRANSFORMATION SPATIALLY, WITH FORMS THAT SUGGEST GROWTH, EMERGENCE, AND STATES OF BECOMING.
