MIDLIFE

The Statement

Dana Ellyn had everything an American woman was supposed to want, manicuring her perfect lawn in a suburban gilded cage. Until the day she threw away her Edward Scissorhands shears and walked off to a more purposeful reality. It was a Quarterlife journey of relentless self-discovery.

Now, she's at Midlife. We're supposed to see it as a last stand, a now-or-never time when one's past choices come to reckoning. For American women, it's practically a death sentence. But Dana Ellyn already had her crossroads moment. She faces forty with the confidence of Anti Crisis.

She never wanted to wake up with conventional regrets. Neither the empty life of the suburbs nor the empty nest of its aftermath would do. This is the time the naysayers would expect her nightmares to be filled with the cries of children never born to the ticking of the clock by which most women allow themselves to be judged. They are wrong. Dana Ellyn's night terrors are of returning to the life of a proper wife she left behind. She's equally mystified, perturbed and intrigued by the roles women both voluntarily choose to play and have involuntarily forced upon them.

Dana Ellyn constantly questions the established norm, thoughtfully. Careful research and quiet planning are the hallmarks of her style. To enter into the frame of her painting is to dance with the whimsy of metaphor, the playful love of pun partnered with a dangerous wink. That whimsy is also fearless in its searchlight exploration.

The prevalent themes of Dana Ellyn's work are all here — whether she is championing the heresy of being a child free woman, or skewering the hypocrisy of religion while paying subversive homage to its iconography — she always returns to the essential truth. She's a woman who left the American dream behind to find her own purpose... finding herself years later at that crisis age she is supposed to fear above all.

It turns out to be her vintage year.

Very special thanks to Jenn Larsen for taking the time to interview Dana about her inspiration for this exhibit and for writing this statement. It has since been translated into French, Spanish, and Italian as the gallery promoted the exhibit throughout Europe. Jenn Larsen is the arts & culture editor for We Love DC.