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In Conversation with Danielle Mužina

A Reckoning in Pink | Danielle Mužina
​February 17 - March 18, 2023

Artist Statement:
A RECKONING IN PINK envisions heightened parallel worlds in which women reckon with personal and communal agency amidst crisis and uncertainty. The paintings ask questions about the impact of gender performance and trauma on relationships, selfhood, and experiences of space, supported by the amplified intensity permitted within an apocalyptic setting. My immigrant grandmother, reflecting on witnessing national crises in our home of former Yugoslavia, tells me “to pay attention when the sky’s bleeding even if someone tells you it’s not.” These paintings grapple with the roles figures play actively or inactively, together or divided, in both contributing to and addressing internal and external crises.

In 2019,  Dr. Blasey-Ford's courageous testimony fueled my bravery in examining my feelings and dreams as a survivor during the #MeToo movement without self-censure. Since then, I have been painting images of women and nonbinary characters interfacing with ambiguous social, bodily, and environmental happenings as a metaphor for the ways we navigate our tenuous contemporary moment. In this series, the sky is often in the process of turning an unnatural shade of pink, and characters reveal ominous magenta wounds. Figures in the paintings react to the apocalyptic turn of events by preparing themselves for wanted or unwanted changes, real or imagined threats, and sufficient or insufficient resolutions in an uncertain future. Within and between groups in my paintings, responses to environmental forces vary, creating either tension or solidarity. Characters gather as groups for rebellion or defense, plot mysterious forms of vigilante justice, prepare to fight or flee, or pick up the pieces together after a cataclysm. Some figures seem to be healing from wounds, while others are curious about harnessing apocalyptic magic. Some even heed Mitski’s advice to “Be The Cowboy” and search the land for answers & threats, as others surrender to a new normal, cigarette in hand, as events unfold. 

The environments in my paintings are densely layered, using visual patterns to reference cyclical patterns of thought and normative behavior that are laced into our perceived realities. These patterns are interwoven with direct and indirect social pressures, impacting both body and mind. Some of these pressures are also embodied by multiple versions of my self-portrait, who behave as different characters in order to reference my felt and changing relationships between gender and place as a queer woman and survivor. I believe we all deserve the agency choose a fluid relationship to gender that shifts to our needs and moods, and the empowerment to be critical, brave, and inventive in the face of oncoming threats. 

While gender can be a space of play, joy, and self-discovery, the rigidity of many traditional gender expectations can be suffocating, and breed an intensity to choose between conflict or survival. In my experiences living with complex PTSD as a survivor, overperforming norms for my assigned gender often feels correlated with the self-effacing “fawn response” to acute stress, or to narratives from my Catholic upbringing about the relationship between suffering and saintliness for women.  As it’s difficult to unpack decades of performing gender and internalizing misogyny, I find myself negotiating conflicts regarding my gender performance and authentic voice as I move through and react to the world around me - just as my self-portraits are in the paintings. Sometimes, imminent destruction feels certain, and other times, I get closer to finding some sort of understanding or collaborative power. The paintings create space for this to occur as these women struggle to problem-solve, collaborate and adapt in turbulent environments. 

Use (or click) the QR code below to link to my artist websites, the exhibition Spotify playlist, an Adrienne Rich poem, and the #MeToo movement’s action toolkits.​

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Artist Bio:
Danielle Mužina is an artist and educator from Cleveland, Ohio. As an artist, she makes paintings that explore place, identity and crisis, inspired by her experiences as a member of a family that immigrated from Croatia. She received her B.F.A at Ohio Wesleyan University, her M.A. at Eastern Illinois University, and her M.F.A. at Miami University. Mužina has studied at the Jerusalem Studio School in Civita Castellana, Italy, and completed residencies at Chautauqua School of Art, the Vermont Studio Center, and The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation. 

Her paintings have been shown at numerous galleries nationally including juried exhibitions at First Street Gallery, Blue Mountain Gallery, Bowery Gallery, The Untitled Space, and Prince Street Gallery in New York, NY, Woskob Family Gallery in State College, PA, the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, GA, and Verum Ultimum Gallery in Portland, OR. Her current series was recognized with an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the national scholarly organization SECAC’s Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award in 2021, and has been exhibited multiple times nationally in the past three years. She is looking forward to being included in John Seed’s upcoming book Disrupted Realism: More Disruption.

Mužina recently pivoted from her position as Assistant Professor of Painting & head of painting at Murray State University, where she was recognized with her institution's Emerging Scholar Award in 2019, Excellence in Teaching Award in 2021, and Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award in 2022. The opportunities for leadership and activism that professorship offered Mužina inspired her to co-found reframe52, a women-owned DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) education company. The reframe52 program is launching this calendar year. Mužina currently lives and works in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio as a proud rust-belter, amateur mixologist, aspiring drag king, and dog mother to a petulant Morkie named Gatsby. 
    
Buckham Gallery is funded by the following organizations:
Generous support is provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

​
This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
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Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • Exhibitions
    • ben duke | Chance Factor
    • Russell Prather | Crux/Flux
    • Exhibition Opportunities >
      • I've Been Here Before-CFE
      • Small Works-CFE
      • CLOSED: BYOC Call for Art
      • Jury and PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
    • In Conversation
    • 2024-2025 Exhibitions
    • Selected Past Exhibitions >
      • Late Winter 2025 >
        • Sara Paula Hoffman- Midwestern Dolls & Ghosts
        • Daniel Kienitz | Fruiting Bodies
        • Jeremy McGirl - Every Little Bit Counts
      • Winter Exhibitions 1/17-2/15/25 >
        • Amanda Edwards | Little Bean Dude
        • Terra Lockhart | We Will Fluoresce Together
        • Eros & Thanatos
      • Winter Exhibitions: Threshold & Snap >
        • Threshold | Emily Scott Beck
        • Snap, National Juried Exhibition
      • November Exhibitions: Brown Bag & Dives, Diners & Drive-Ins >
        • Brown Bag, National Juried Exhibition
        • Dives, Diners & Drive-Ins
      • October Exhibitions: Tickle Me & Recent Work >
        • Tickle Me
        • Recent Work | Robert J Huebel
      • Gebhardt | Nuzum Selected Works >
        • Gary Gebhardt Selected Works
        • Tom Nuzum Selected Works
      • Mid Summer Exhibitions >
        • In Spite of It | Yvette L Cummings
        • Clay Vessels | Craig Hinshaw
        • Tipping Point | Craig Cully & Kelly Leslie
      • Summer Exhibitions >
        • I Get My Hit And Then I Run With It | Jessika Edgar
        • Located in the Newly Unfamiliar | Laura Carpenter Truitt & Amy Reckley
      • 40 Years of Buckham Fine Arts Project
      • Spring Exhibitions >
        • Bonded thru Threaded Memories | Boisali Biswas
        • Metaphysique, National Juried Exhibition
        • Sculpture, National Juried Exhibition
      • Collectanea
      • Forest Elegy
      • Winter 2024 Exhibitions >
        • High Profile | Ariana Vaeth
        • Donut King | #0591
        • Press Play
      • 2023 Exhibitions >
        • Contemporary Realism: Four Artist, Four Voices
        • November Exhibitions >
          • US | Teresa Dunn
          • New Work | Buckham Artist Collaborators
        • Early Fall Exhibitions >
          • Selected Works Tom Nuzum
          • Among the Folds | Tai Lipan
          • Llamáme Por Mi Nombre | Kiara Aileen Machado
        • Late Summer Solo Exhibitions
        • Summer Solo Exhibitions
        • June Solo Exhibitions
        • April Exhibitions
        • Late Winter Solo Exhibitions
        • January Solo Exhibitions
      • 2022 Exhibitions
      • 2021 Exhibitions
      • 2020 Exhibitions
      • 2019 Exhibitions
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • B.Y.O.C. 2025 >
      • B.Y.O.C. 2024
      • B.Y.O.C. 2023
    • Flint ARTWALK
    • Past Events >
      • Cider & Slides
      • Open Mic
      • Past Artist Talks >
        • 2024 Smallidge Lecture
        • 2023 Smallidge Lecture
        • 2022 Smallidge Lecture
        • Jan. 10, 2020: Artist Talks with Ardea Thurston-Shaine and Dominique Chastenet de Gary
        • Tommy Mintz, Nov. 2019
        • 2019 Smallidge Lecture
        • June 2019: Panel Discussion with John Dempsey, Guy Adamec, and Amy Gibas
        • May 4, 2019- Artist Talk with Stephen Halko and Nick Reszetar
        • April 13, 2019 ​Artist Talk and Deviant Life Drawing Session with Jeanine Leclaire
  • PROJECTS
    • Literary Anthology Calls
    • BFAP: Writer in Residence >
      • Vivian Kao
      • Jenifer Fernandes Veloso
      • Guest Writer Xzavier V. Simon
      • Bob Campbell
      • Natasha Thomas
      • Shea Phire Cobb
    • Collaborators at Karmanos
    • BFAP: On Screen >
      • On Screen Artists
      • FAQ
    • BFAP: Interns
    • Emerging Artist with UM-F >
      • Keyon Lovett
      • Steven Banks
      • My Proulx
  • About Buckham
    • Mission Statement
    • Board and Staff
    • Buckham Arts Collective
    • Buckham Community Membership
    • Founders Feature >
      • FOUNDERS FEATURE: THOMAS NUZUM
      • Founders Feature: Sam Morello
      • Founders Feature: Ken Kinyon
      • Founders Feature: John Dempsey
      • FOUNDERS FEATURE: GUY ADAMEC
    • History
    • 2023 Annual Report >
      • 2022 Annual Report
      • 2021 Annual Report
      • 2020 Annual Report
    • News/Press
    • BAC 2023 - 2024 >
      • 2023-24 BAC Renewal
      • Bylaws
      • Policies
  • SUPPORT US
    • Online Shop
    • 2024 - 2025 Annual Fund
    • 41st Season Sponsorship Packet
    • Community Membership
    • WIR Support
    • Buckham Donors
  • Visit
    • CONNECT
    • Rent Buckham Gallery