Dana James creates works with an exquisite sense of touch, incorporating multiple mediums and textures. Central to James’ work is the idea of materials transcending their nature. These recent paintings coalesce bright, pastel palettes with recycled canvas. She incorporates unorthodox materials such as flecks of tin foil and iridescent encaustic that create surprising glimmers of light embedded within opaque color fields, and evoke the magical play of moonlight or the glinting of the ocean. Her works manipulate materials to create such transcendental effects that recall nature, and endeavor to capture memory and transience as a feeling or moment caught in time. Drawing from the tradition of twentieth-century color field painting, James gives form to captivating dualities—transience and permanence, geometric and amorphous, light and dark. 

Dana James was born in New York City, where she is currently based. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2008 and has since had her paintings featured in numerous solo, two-person, and group exhibitions in the US and abroad. James has had solo shows at Hollis Taggart Contemporary, New York; Bode Projects, Berlin; and The Lodge Gallery, New York. Her 2017 solo show Sometimes Seen Dreams was selected as a featured exhibit for the Art Critical Review Panel discussion series. In 2020, Daily Collector featured James in the article “Top 20 Artists Shaping the New Decade.” James’s artwork was recently featured in Artsy’s “Top Trending Artists,” and Cool Hunting in 2023 in addition to Artillery, Artforum, New York Magazine, Two Coats of Paint, and Hyperallergic, among others. Her paintings are held in many private and public collections, including UBS Art Collection and Gibson & Dunn. James is represented by Hollis Taggart Contemporary in New York and Bode Projects in Berlin.

Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include, "Pearls & Potions" (Hollis Taggart, 2023), Expo Chicago (Hollis Taggart, 2023), Untitled Art Fair Miami (Bode Projects, 2022), “Love Letter” (Gruin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2022), “Something I Meant to Say” (Hollis Taggart, 2021), “Otherwise All Was Silent” (Bode Projects, Berlin, 2020), Untitled Art Fair Miami (Hollis Taggart, 2020, 2021), “The Thread, Dana James and Lizbeth Mitty” (David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Brooklyn NY, 2019) and “Sometimes Seen Dreams” (The Lodge Gallery, Lower East Side, NY, 2017). James has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including, “Abstract Ascension” (Hollis Taggart Contemporary, Southport, CT, 2022),  Berlin Art Week (Bode Projects, Berlin), RISA Art Fair (Bode Projects, Berlin, 2022), “Clean Slate” (Gruin Gallery, Los Angeles, 2021), “Reunion” (Hollis Taggart Contemporary, Southport, CT, 2021), “Contemporary Women Paint: Abstract Expressions” (Des Moines, IA, 2020), “Sound & amp; Color “(SugarLift with the High Line Nine, Chelsea, NY, 2020) “Look Again” (Hollis Taggart Contemporary, Southport, CT, 2020), “Refract Mere” (Marquee Projects, Bellport, LI, 2020) and “Breaking The Frame”, (Hollis Taggart, Chelsea, NY, 2019).