Dana Sherwood is a New York based artist whose work explores contact between human and non-human animals in order to understand culture and behaviour. Her sculptures, video works, and watercolours portray ritualised feedings Sherwood performs for animals who live among or at the borders of human populations. She experiments night after night to serve a population of animals with decadent cakes, sculpted gelatine moulds, and rare meats that they will enjoy, capturing their indulgence on film and making drawings of the encounters. The animals play a complex role as subjects and collaborators, asserting their visibility and desires even as Sherwood’s work theorises about the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch in which human activity has caused substantial, irreversible damage to the natural world.
Since receiving a BFA from the University of Maine in 2004 Sherwood has exhibited throughout The Americas and Europe including solo exhibitions at Nagle-Draxler Reiseburogalerie (Cologne), Denny Gallery (New York) and at Kepler Art-Conseil (Paris, 2017). Her work has also been shown at The Fellbach Sculpture Triennial (Germany), Kunsthal Aarhus, The Palais des Beaux Arts Paris, Marian Boesky Gallery, Mixed Greens Gallery, Socrates Sculpture Park, Flux Factory, The Biennial of Western New York, Prospect 2: New Orleans, Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche (Toronto), The CCBB (Brazil), dOCUMENTA 13, as well as many other venues worldwide.
She currently lives in Washington Heights with her husband and frequent collaborator, Mark Dion and is represented by Denny Galleryin New York.