Dana Dallal
BIO
Based in Toronto Ontario, Dana Dallal is an emerging ceramic artist. Growing up, Dana spent countless summer days harvesting bounty from her grandparent’s backyard, cycling around town alone, and exploring every nook and cranny of her parent’s fresh cut flower warehouse. When she wasn’t exploring these magical places, she could be found inside her grandmother’s workroom, sewing dresses for her dolls and Barbies from the tender age of six. Dana has a habit of becoming sentimentally attached to objects because to her they contain memories that would otherwise be lost.
Before studying ceramics at Sheridan College, Dana trained as a Fashion Designer at Toronto Metropolitan University and The London College of Fashion. She spent ten years working for luxury designer labels in the UK in a variety of creative roles. After returning to Canada with her young family, she started taking evening pottery classes and became completely engrossed. She quickly left her old career behind to pursue this new path. Dana’s work now explores how personal memories become distorted over time. She creates sculptures and vessels that reference her colourful and creative childhood.
CAPSTONE PROJECT
PIECES ARTICULATED
I create sculptural objects and functional vessels that contain personal memories. I use a broad and subtle palette of colored slip painted in layers to illustrate silhouettes of flowers and leaves. The botanical surfaces, with graphic, geometric elements recall time I spent in my family’s floral warehouse, among tightly bundled blooms kept in cylindrical buckets and rectangular boxes. Memories are only accessible in bits and pieces, and are difficult to recreate as a whole. I layer images to communicate the poetic ephemeral world where memories come into sharp focus or recede into the background, obscuring or highlighting parts of our past. My work suggests the complex and multidimensional nature of memory, as it distorts and changes over time.
FEATURED Work
Title: Sunset Blossoms
Dimensions: 27 x 15 x 17 in.
Year: 2022
Materials: Stoneware, Slips, Glazes
Title: Lidded Boxes
Dimensions: 16 x 7 x 10 in.
Year: 2023
Materials: Stoneware, Slips, Glazes
Title: Piece 3
Dimensions: 16 x 7 x 10 in.
Year: 2023
Materials: Stoneware, Slips, Glazes