/ De Pree Art Gallery

Conversations: Process, Materials, and Accretions

  • artwork that has a brightly colored grid in front of a black background with thin gold and blue lines
  • artwork with a continuous scribbled black line that creates many organic shapes which are filled with color
  • part of a white plaster sculpture that is shaped like a leaf with jagged edges
  • screenprint of a black square with several neon colored grids layered above it, on top of a neon green background

August 28ÑÇÖÞÉ«°É“September 21, 2023
Daniel Callis
Borgeson Artist in Residence Exhibition


This exhibition by Daniel Callis, our 2023 Borgeson Artist in Residence, also features work by studio assistant Stephanie Somjak and poet Christopher Davidson. 

Drawing on the repetitious performative liturgical practice of both Western Christian and North African Islamic traditions, Callis has constructed a methodology of production and imagery development that employs a variety of organic grid forms or net patterns sourced from the vertical and horizontal orientations of the traditional Berber weavers and the narrative orientations of the New Testament gospels, as well as systems and network theory.

Callis is an transdisciplinary visual artist and professor of painting in Los Angeles, CA. Working within a variety of media and visual traditions, his art explores the poetics found at the intersection of materials and process. It speaks into personal and cultural histories that are continually updated, altered, deconstructed and reconstructed. Each work archives conversations between method and material, structure and concept.

In addition to his individual studio practice, Callis has collaborated extensively, including partnering with individuals with physical and developmental disabilities;  a field biologist in Baja, Mexico; a sociologist in Las Vegas, NV; a theologian from Duke Divinity School; a poet/musician from California; and a performance artist/puppeteer from Rhode Island.

Inaugurated in 2016, the Borgeson Artist in Residence Program was created through the generosity and enthusiasm of Hope alumni Clarke and Nancy Rayner Borgeson.

Read the full press release