DANIEL JEFFERSON
BORN 1977, St. Louis
Daniel Jefferson (b. 1977) is a self-taught street artist working under the moniker Bipolar Holiday. A native of St. Louis, Dan grew up in North St. Louis County in the cities of Normandy and Hazelwood. By the age of 3, he was drawing and painting alongside his father Melvin Jefferson and together they shared studios and collaborations into his mid-20s.
Dan’s father grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi and his mother in St. Louis. Expounding on his family history, Dan speaks of his Quaker and Native American ancestry - along with his father, who is black, and his mother who is white - as forming his multiracial identity and upbringing. He expresses “not always fitting in,” - being neither “this nor that” - and residing on the margins between the social constructs of race. This emotional state is reflected in his artistic output. He cautions us to see that, while the subject matter of his work is not always a direct depiction of his experience of race, his existence as a person of color propels him and bears directly on his artistic focus and choice of materials, along with the application and gesture in each work. Anger and sadness are part of it – also love, joy, pride and humility. Jefferson often signs his work with a mark inspired by the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horas – a symbol of power, protection, and health.
Throughout his career, Dan has been both a solo practitioner and a collaborator. Tagging as King Dee and later Melo, he worked variously in the St. Louis area from the mid- 1990s to early 2000s. In the 1990s, he painted with the then St. Louis-based graffiti artist Nick Miller and his crew. Choice spots ranged from free standing concrete walls on abandoned property to temporary fencing along construction sites. Dan’s compositions contained expressive line and figural elements – human faces, eyes – and the ethereal and allegorical – angel, devil motifs, etc. Later, he moved his artistic focus to a more studio-based form starting in the early 2000s. Dan had his first show alongside his father’s work at Urbis-Orbis Gallery in downtown St. Louis in 2003. Coming full circle, he occasionally works in a few items of collage or spontaneous marks made by his daughter during her early childhood.
Dan has exhibited his work both locally and globally including St. Louis, New York, Grand Rapids and Antwerp. In 2019, he was featured in a four-page spread of JMG Lifestyle Magazine and a large-scale work whet to the Isabis Art Expo in 2019. St. Louis Magazine listed “Bipolar Holiday: Kyoto Girls” when the Walker-Cunningham Fine Art pop-up exhibit was named to the A-List in July 2020.
Jefferson’s work can be found in numerous private and public collections. He lives in St. Louis City and is represented by Walker-Cunningham Fine Art.
References:
St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Pop Influences, a son shares his father’s passion for art, and together they create unique works” by Jeff Daniel, August 1, 1997, p. E1.
St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Father and son are art outsiders – and proud of it,” by Thomas Crone, July 10, 2003, p. 32.
JMG Lifestyle Magazine, “Graffiti Street Art by Loner Brand,” May 2019, p. 36-39
EXHIBITIONS
2003 The Outsider Art of Daniel and Melvin Jefferson, Urbis Orbis Gallery, St. Louis. July 11-26, 2003.
2007 Black Fine Art Show, The Urban League of St. Louis. July 26-28, 2007.
2009 Daniel Jefferson at Creative Revolution Studios, City-Wide Open Studios, hosted by Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis.
2010 Screwed Again, Screwed Arts Collective at Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis. August 13-October 3, 2010.
2011 ArtPrize 2011, Screwed Arts Collective at Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI, September 11-October 9, 2011.
2012-2015 618 Gallery, St. Louis. Various group shows.
2014 2-5-Oh!: Surprise, Sadness and Struggle in the Mound City, exhibition to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis. Salon 53, St. Louis. February 18-December 31, 2014.
2014 Now! Vibrant Traditions with an Unexpected Edge, Philip Slein Gallery curated by Freida L. Wheaton, St. Louis. December 19, 2014-January 24, 2015.
2016 The Indigenous Self, Urb Arts, St. Louis, June, 2016.
2018 Parallel Universes, Zalma Lofton Gallery, Santa Fe, June, 2018.
2018 Quality Control Volume Two, Mascot Agency, St. Louis, August 4, 2018.
2018 Noctem Diaboli, Living Gallery Outpost curated by Stephen Romano of Stephen Romano Gallery, New York. October 30, 2018.
2019 Isabis Art Expo: Healing Through Art, Het Bos, Antwerp, Belgium. September 20-21, 2019.
2020 Bipolar Holiday: Kyoto Girls, Walker-Cunningham Fine Art, St. Louis. April 4-May 2, 2020.
COLLABORATIONS
FASONDA
1990s - with father Melvin Jefferson
Screwed Arts Collective
2010 – Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO
2011 – Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
2012 – World Chess Hall of Fame, St. Louis, MO
Loner Brand
2019 - Loner Brand (with RiteHand Robot!)
PUBLICATIONS
1997 St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Pop Influences: A Son Shares His Father’s Passion for Art,” by Jeff Daniel, illustrated full front- page section feature, August 1, 1997, 1E.
2003 St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Father and son are art outsiders – and proud of it,” by Thomas Crone, July 10, 2003, p. 32.
2009 St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Art and Studio on Display” illustrated announcement of the Contemporary Art Museum’s 4th Annual City-Wide Open Studios. July 27, 2007, p. A3.
2010 Riverfront Times, “Screwed Again: Nine Local Artists Paint and Party at the Regional Arts Commission,” August 10, 2010.
2011 The Grand Rapids Press, “A Work in Progress,” ArtPrize 2011 mural for Urban Institute of Contemporary Art with Screwed Arts Collective, September 18, 2011.
2019 JMG Lifestyle Magazine, “Graffiti Street Art by Loner Brand,” four page spread illustrated interview with collaborator RiteHand Robot!, p. 36-39.
2019 The Official Tech Scriptures: The 3rd Generation of Graffiti in Saint Louis 1990-2000 by Nick Miller, GCG Publishing, St. Louis.
2020 St. Louis Magazine, “Walker-Cunningham Fine Art pivots to an online model for the new pop-up exhibit 'Kyoto Girls',” by Melissa Meinzer, March 30, 2020.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Art was always my own thing – the thing nobody could touch…art makes me feel clean and when I was child I used to get into trouble at school…so when I’d draw after school when I had to go to the YMCA that kept me quiet…isolated…clean…and in some way this has not changed…this feeling…the clean feeling…plus an escape…from the things in my life I choose to escape from…the physical act of painting is more interesting to me than the subject of the work…as you’re painting it sounds like you are in a café and hear all types of voices having conversations…something similar is going on inside your head…the voices are different ideas and inspirations…and the loudest one get to manifest itself in your creation. But if I had to list inspirations, I’d say Japanese woodblock prints- as well as Manga…Egyptian art…graffiti/street art…tattoo art…Buddhism…and some of art’s usual suspects … Picasso-Basquiat-and and other name brands…I’m also very much inspired by the work of my daughter…she’s not trying to impress anyone = she doesn’t know what that is yet. I feel like the speed at which I create work allows me to not have the time to worry about art history…how someone will feel about what I am making = I have a better chance of being genuine and legit…now I do understand that you have to pay tribute to the past in small or large ways…people need that…collectors need that…I’ve been told one of my strengths is my use of color…I try and float back and forth between peace and calm …color can provide also complete and utter chaos…sometimes my use of color with another might have been simply because that bottle of color was nearest to me…the fun of this approach is then to deal with the situation if it ends up not working and forcing it to…I love forcing colors that have nothing in common to deal with each other.