As a whimsical feminist from the vermilion Texas desert, Rebekah Danae’s worldview hasn’t shattered, but surrealized. There are volumes to paint on the modern American western progressive experience— on streetwear and western wear, racism and Christianity, social media threads and community organizing meetings, and the people who live it each day. Impossible to portray in their totality, Danae offers her painted and sewn perspective as a provocation. Reckoning with the dark truths of our heritage and employing a childlike futurism, her work is for the new world, from the old world, about the world in-between.
Danae’s interdisciplinary practice of oil painting, leatherwork, and social sculpture culminates in collaborative installation based experiences that create culture and community.
As a whimsical feminist from the vermilion Texas desert, Rebekah Danae’s worldview hasn’t shattered, but surrealized. There are volumes to paint on the modern American western progressive experience— on streetwear and western wear, racism and Christianity, social media threads and community organizing meetings, and the people who live it each day. Impossible to portray in their totality, Danae offers her painted and sewn perspective as a provocation. Reckoning with the dark truths of our heritage and employing a childlike futurism, her work is for the new world, from the old world, about the world in-between.
Danae’s interdisciplinary practice of oil painting, leatherwork, and social sculpture culminates in collaborative installation based experiences that create culture and community.
The debut art and sneaker event, curated by Venita Cooper, to launch Silhouette Sneakers and Art on Black Wall Street. Featuring work by Frankie Zombie, Alexander Tamahn, Gary Mason, and Rebekah Danae.
Rebekah Danae’s first exhibit as “A Creative House” launched the neon orange W&LFA wearable hat sculpture through a photo campaign with performance artist, Parker D. Wayne, and photographer, Fivish. Also shown in this installation: The full collection of “Re-Imagined Boots” (made for Steph Simon, Alexander Tamahn, Olivia Caldwell, Alden Weeks, Brandon Yeehawbs, and Rebekah Danae) and two paintings from the 2019 self-portrait series.
Head in the clouds: futuristic mindset or escapist ideation? This exhibit explores the paradox of visionary states and the tension they imply while featuring “The Leather Shopper, Head in the Clouds 2022 Edition” bag sculpture, the bag’s augmented reality effect, the bag’s NFT collection, alongside “The Cloudscape Box/The Love Painting”. Welcome to the Wild West of the Metaverse, where futuristic country kids reside, with their modular structed bags and soft, dreaming hearts. The exhibit’s augmented reality effects and NFT release were built in collaboration with Tulsa artist, Chris Vanndy, and hosted by Parker D. Wayne.
A wearable sculpture, a moment in time. Inspired by Danae’s inner country kid and Vivienne Westwood and, performed by the emerging Oklahoma underground. Each time this piece is worn, physically through limited edition pieces or digitally through augmented reality, we interpret the new world, from a liberated Oklahoman point of view. The digital version of this piece was built in collaboration with Chris Vanndy.
Within Steph Simon’s Dreamland Festival grounds, this immersive exhibit acted as a surreal riff on a farmers market. At sundown each night, the exhibit visually and digitally came to life as festival attendees were invited into a country-futurism lounge space. Incorporated in the install: Italian leather furniture, cow & buffalo hides, a 1967 Chevy Apache, handmade cowboy boots, a film projection mapped on a mirrored geo-barn, & performance pieces in collaboration with Kalup Linzy and Parker D. Wayne.
A capsule collection— with emphasis on smell and sound— of the wearable art objects and paintings created by Rebekah Danae, during 2021 and 2022, exhibited on the beach in a boxcar alongside a pole performance by muse, Alexander Tamahn, and featured works by Parker D. Wayne. With this exhibit, Danae led a 22 person research trip for Tulsa-based artists through Art Basel, Satellite Art Show, Unititled, Design Miami, and PRISM. This exhibit is featured in the documentary short, “Oklahoma Underground,” by Brea Mullin and Bobby Ross.
Informed by Yayoi Kusama's perceptual-experience infinity mirror rooms, the black infinity barn acts as a surreal and womb-like portal to the liberated future self through a raw exterior, symbolic of grief. In the culminating performance piece, Oklahoma Fashion Alliance barnstorms the runway. Barnstorm (v.)- a theater term, in reference to performances (usually featuring short action pieces to suit vulgar tastes) in upstate New York barns. The notion is to "take by storm' the barns that served as theaters in rural places where itinerant acting troupes typically performed.
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After traveling to Kenya in 2012, Danae painted this body of work based on the joy of children living at an orphanage in Kapsabat, utilizing technology to contrast an American lack of joy through stop-motion video, painted QR codes, and horizontal printer lines running through images as a barrier.
A series of works painted in five different Tulsa studios (an apartment on Greenwood Ave, a barn in Glenpool, the back room of Silhouette Sneakers and Art on Archer, and two Clean Hands studios) as City Bank’s new locations opened throughout Texas from 2014 to 2023.
A collection of the wearable art objects and paintings created by Rebekah Danae, from 2019 to 2022, at Clubhouse Leathers and Blucher Boots in Beggs, OK and at Clean Hands Studio in Tulsa, OK.
Founded in 2018 with artist Alexander Tamahn and educator Maggie Cooper, DISRUPT is a Youth Art Alliance empowering students in the North Tulsa community through mural, streetwear, and wearable art projects that are student envisioned and student led.
Reality is a transformative learning journey for leaders who work at the forefront of societal innovation and share a commitment to leading positive change. Curated for leaders from diverse communities and backgrounds who work in a range of industries— Danae curated and produced Reality’s inaugural participant Tulsa journey, deepening their ability to lead on complex issues and connecting with peers from across the globe.
The first in a series of research trips, Rebekah Danae and Tulsa Creative Engine partnered to take leaders in the Tulsa art ecosystem to see “The Armory Show” and “Springbreak Art Show” with the intent of meeting with curators, galleries, and seeing the work.
Embedded within Steph Simon’s Dreamland Music Festival, Danae curated a collection of visual art installations spread throughout the N. Cheyenne Technology Corridor. The installations included the first iteration of “Texture” by No Parking Studios, “Spark Space” featuring Tulsa Artist Fellows Shane Darwent, Sarah Ahmad, & Tulsa-based artist Shelby Aloisio, large wood pieces by Alexander Tamahn, and gallery spaces by Arthouse and Black Moon.
The second in a series of research trips, Rebekah Danae partnered with Tulsa Creative Engine and fellow artists, Alexander Tamahn and Antonio Andrews, to take 27 emerging Tulsa artists to Miami Art Week. While in Miami, artists ran three installation based exhibits at Satellite Art Fair, shot a documentary short, and spent time at fairs such as Art Basel, Design Miami, Untitled, Prizm, and in the Overtown community.
Curated by Rebekah Danae, Tulsa Artist Fellowship’s Studio 101 inaugural exhibit was dedicated to the wise, whimsical, and willful words of women that shape our world. “HARVEST” featured a healing installation by artist Shelby Aloisio in collaboration with ethnographer Autumn Brown, Burroughs Elementary School, and Marlon Hall. The art-filled evening and talks culminated in “SOIL”, a movement-based project for individuals actively working towards social change.
Curated by Rebekah Danae and built by Chris Vanndy , this augmented reality gallery features the work of Alexander Tamahn, Elizabeth Henley, Fags in Ecstasy, VNICE, Gary Mason, Aunj Braggs, Alexandra O’Neal, Fivish, and Rebekah Danae. In partnership with Tulsa Creative Engine, this gallery was launched at the Tulsa creative takeover, “Fire in Little Africa on 6th Street” at the 2023 SXSW in Austin, TX.
Breakout is a national community dedicated to creating transformative experiences for changemakers who are fueled by connection. Rebekah Danae, with Alexander Tamahn, curated and produced their 2023 weekend intensive in Tulsa— including leaders from the Warhol Foundation.
From January 2024 - November 2024, 8 Tulsa-based artists will spend 5.5 weeks each in LA completing work in line with their artistic practice and building relationships in the LA art ecosystem. At the end of the pilot program, the eight artists will exhibit their work at A Creative House show, to take place in LA and in Tulsa. The intent of this pilot program is to invest in Tulsa-based creatives, bolstering and developing their art practice while creating opportunities to connect them to the global art market beyond Oklahoma.
ABOUT
While completing her BFA at Baylor University, Rebekah Danae’s fourteen year painting practice was stylistically and thematically influenced by formative experiences in Belgium, studying surrealist Rene Magritte’s blend of comedy and peril, and in Texas, learning from Sedrick Huckaby’s metaphoric expressions of faith, community, and heritage.
Sculpturally— through leatherwork and interior design— Danae’s work has been influenced by the cowboy boot making community in Beggs, Oklahoma and the design firm of Christopher Murphy. In practice, Danae draws inspiration from Virgil Abloh, who blurred the lines of art and commerce through the tools of contemporary culture; by Rebecca Belmore’s ability to elicit intimate moments of reflection while tackling tremendous contemporary issues; the liberatory mysticism of Afrofuturism philosophy; the fiber artists of the wearable art movement in the 70s; and the community-based relational practice of Rick Lowe.
Through her work, Rebekah Danae and the Creative House orchestrate a movement in the middle of the country made up of a diverse creative choir. Far from a lone ranger, Danae works collaboratively across a curated network of Oklahomans— from the punk underground, homegrown rappers and producers, luxury interior designers, rodeo cowboys, rural bootmakers, to philanthropic, political, and educational leaders. Her approach, while comedic, whimsical, and surreal, has the intended impact of critical regional culture shaping from the current white supremacy that is prevalent regionally today and toward a co-created futurist Oklahoma, the liberated West.
CONnect
projects@rebekahdanae.com