(EEUU/RD, 1989)

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Danessa Santana

(United States, 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with paper, textiles, and found materials to build detailed compositions, soft sculptures, performances and installations. Growing up in the Dominican Republic, they found in local folklore an interest in decolonization and resistance as cultural preservation techniques of the Tainos and other indigenous groups of the “New” world, as well as a deep concern regarding exploitative practices towards natural resources. Her work focuses on magical realism as an avenue to construct utopias and explorations of identity through the representations of untamed natural landscapes, danger-coded cultural symbols, and superhuman beings who inhabit these stories and places.

Danessa is a graduate of the Altos de Chavón Design School, La Romana, DR, receiving a degree in Fine Arts in 2015. This same year she participated in Mixed Media Studies at the School of Visual Arts of New York, NY. 

Between 2014 and 2017, Danessa is part of several group exhibitions and art fairs with Casa Quien. In 2023, Danessa presented their first solo show in Priego Studio, in Santo Domingo, DR. In October 2023, she participated in an art residency based in Aubrac Natural Park, in Prinsuéjols-Malbouzon, France. Danessa was awarded a fellowship by the Dirección General de Museos Dominicana to participate in the Nacán Art Residency program in Samaná, Dominican Republic, concluding in a solo exhibition in the Museo de las Casas Reales in May 2024. In Spring 2024, Danessa participates in their second French art residency based in Les Sables d'Olonne, in Pays de la Loire, France.

Her work is part of the collections of Casa Quien, Altos de Chavón Cultural Foundation and various private collections in the Dominican Republic, United States, France, and Mexico. Danessa currently resides in Lenapehoking (colonially renamed Brooklyn, New York) since 2015, traveling constantly to their atelier in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.