Dan Gunderson: A View From Above

Composed of digital prints on a special metallic substrate, Dan Gunderson’s Holmes gallery exhibition, A View From Above, will delight the eyes of viewers of all ages. Professor of Art at Stetson University, Gunderson was trained as a ceramic artist. He currently teaches courses in ceramics, sculpture, and drawing. When his two sons played with plastic action figures as children, he didn’t know that he would be inspired to develop a fresh artistic direction. Gunderson explains, “They were exposed to pop culture in a big way, so it became my experience, too.” 

An avid collector of art and cultural artifacts, he was fascinated by the colorful figures of super-heroes and other characters that his kids played with and then cast aside. Mining piles of garage sale toys, he added to the collection of figures and began to arrange them on shelves in rhythmic patterns of shapes and colors. Occasionally, he photographed them on the garage floor, while standing above them. After experimenting with simple patterns, Gunderson developed more complex mandala-like arrangements of the colorful figures. Over time, he also upgraded his equipment to a professional-quality Nikon camera and acquired a faster computer so that he could create the high-definition digital images on view. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.