Upcoming and Current:

Solo exhibit. "Enchantment: the Magical World of Craig McDaniel," at RJD Gallery, Romeo, Michigan. November, 2024.

Solo exhibit. Award for Best of Show -- 3 paintings in professional division. Indianapolis Arts Center. Upcoming: Spring 2025

Story about my RJD Gallery show, in "American Art Collector," upcoming, November 2024.

"Lessons in Looking: Paulina Okowska on Patrol", essay on contemporary painting, lead essay in The Montreal Review, Fall 2024.


Recent Fellowship:
Creative Renewal Fellowship, 2021, for visual arts, award for visual art/experimental visual writing, Indianapolis Arts Council, sponsored by Lilly Endowment.

Selected Recent exhibitions:

Group exhibit, 924 Gallery, exhibit of Creative Renewal Fellows, Indianapolis Arts Council. June - July 2022.

Dreams of Joy, Solo exhibit, Indianapolis Arts Center, Sarah M Hunt Gallery, 11/1/2021 thru 12/17/2021.

RECENT publications:

"Hand with Head," essay on paintings (Giotto, Caravaggio, Picasso); "On the Seawall", 2024.

Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford. Co-author with Jean Robertson; with contributions by Scott Contreras-Koterbay. 5th Edition, 2022.
Korean translation of 5th edition: 2023.

Poems from series, "Love Poems of Alice B. Toklas," Red Noise Collective. Fall 2023.

"Lessons in Looking: Rethinking 'Washington Crossing the Delaware,' essay in The Montreal Review. 2023.

Craig McDaniel, “Founding Documents: Restaged,” in Fractured Union: American Democracy on the Brink, special issue, Michigan Quarterly Review [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan], guest editor: Davan Maharaj, Fall 2022.

Craig McDaniel’s creative practice focuses on painting. In addition to revisiting traditional themes – including still life and narrative paintings – McDaniel has pioneered new approaches to painting, such as 3-dimensional paintings, rebus-like painting installations, and paintings that feature texts transposed into invented alphabets. His art has been featured in over 20 solo and featured-artist exhibitions, and numerous group exhibitions. Solo exhibition venues include Ft. Wayne Museum of Art, Swope Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), Purdue University Art Gallery, Jan Cicero Gallery (Chicago). He has received individual grants and fellowships for artmaking from Ohio Arts Council and Indiana Arts Commission, and art residency fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and Millay Colony for the Arts (NY).
Publications include volumes co-authored with Jean Robertson, including Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Oxford University Press), in preparation for its 5th edition, with translations into Chinese and Korean, and Spellbound: Rethinking the Alphabet (Intellect, Ltd., UK | University of Chicago, US distribution). Essays, experimental literature, and artworks have appeared widely in national journals, including Art Journal, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and DIAGRAM. Past curatorial activities were supported by grants from National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ohio Arts Council, and Indiana Arts Commission. With Jean Robertson, he served as Founding Director of the Southern Ohio Museum.
McDaniel, who holds degrees from University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Ohio State University, and University of Montana, is Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at Indiana University's Herron School of Art + Design, McDaniel. He is married to Jean Robertson, an art historian, most recently one of two lead authors for The History of Art: A Global View (Thames & Hudson).

SAMPLE OF A COMMISSION:
Image above: one in a series of 3; commission for Eli Lilly and Co. to transform quotes from scientists for a research facility. 2017. Size: 60" (h) x 50" (w).

Commissions invited for Experimental Alphabet Projects.
Client collaborates on the selection of text/s and images for alphabets.