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“Intensity is a hallmark
of Rhema’s creations. His work is anything but casual. It is driven
and it is passionate. . . His art is compelling because it is direct,
simple and spontaneous. It remains unprejudiced and unpolluted by preconceived
theories, by a formal art education or by mandated technique. |
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| "Dan is
truly blessed with a gift for relating art to people in a way that is
very spiritual and cultural. For him to be able to talk about his experience
and be able to embrace and relate it to other ethnic groups and religions
is truly phenomenal." Shirley Sweatt, art collector |
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| "I've been
struggling for years to perfect certain techniques, as all artists do.
For Dan to have no formal training and to be able to create these amazing
sculptures is hard for me to grasp. It's very humbling as an artist to
see him be able to express his ideas so vividly." Kevin Payne, artist/teacher |
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| On a personal
and therapeutic level, it's clear to me that the initial inspiration or
force to do the work came from his near-death experience and his need
to process that through accessing his feelings and ideas in a non-verbal
form. That's basically what art therapy is about. Before, Rhema was creating
objects compulsively. Now he seems to be working on a more technical level,
and he's moving forward with his work. The compulsion to create seems
to have diminished from the original emotional necessity. That says to me that he's gotten much better, now he is able to draw more pleasure from his work as well as appreciate the pleasure of other people enjoying it." Dr. Abby Calisch, Director of the Expressive Art Therapy Dept. U of L |
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Rhema’s works in “The
Art of Dreaming” are. . . more charged, highly personal symbolic
images that deal with a near-death-experience. Rhema often works with
mask images, often self-portraits, that seem to float on a universe
of shooting stars. Very metaphysical. |
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