Craig McDaniel’s creative practice focuses on painting. In addition to revisiting traditional themes – including still life and narrative paintings – McDaniel has pioneered new approaches to painting, such as 3-dimensional paintings, rebus-like painting installations, and paintings that feature texts transposed into invented alphabets. His art has been featured in over 20 solo and featured-artist exhibitions, and numerous group exhibitions. Solo exhibition venues include Ft. Wayne Museum of Art, Swope Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), Purdue University Art Gallery, Jan Cicero Gallery (Chicago). He has received individual grants and fellowships for artmaking from Ohio Arts Council and Indiana Arts Commission, and art residency fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and Millay Colony for the Arts (NY).
Publications include volumes co-authored with Jean Robertson, including Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Oxford University Press), in preparation for its 5th edition, with translations into Chinese and Korean, and Spellbound: Rethinking the Alphabet (Intellect, Ltd., UK | University of Chicago, US distribution). Essays, experimental literature, and artworks have appeared widely in national journals, including Art Journal, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and DIAGRAM. Past curatorial activities were supported by grants from National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ohio Arts Council, and Indiana Arts Commission. With Jean Robertson, he served as Founding Director of the Southern Ohio Museum.
McDaniel, who holds degrees from University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Ohio State University, and University of Montana, is Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at Indiana University’s Herron School of Art + Design, McDaniel. He is married to Jean Robertson, an art historian, most recently one of two lead authors for The History of Art: A Global View (Thames & Hudson).
