A Brief Biography

Null and Void – that’s how artist Dan Voelker felt while struggling with suicidal ideation and seeing the depths of depression and personal hell. While carving out a perfect dream, in one short year everything collapsed – loss of fiancé, loss of home, loss of job, all coming to a climax after being brutally beaten and close to death, Dan turned to art.

Art helped Dan live through very real emotional and physical pain, and although his life is now in a very different place, earlier works tapped into the pain, loneliness, and darkness he once felt. Now a generally happy person, Dan considers his past experiences a gift to helping him understand the world today. Through his own suffering he has become aware of the broader pain humanity experiences, and is able to tap into and convey it through his art. Current works now embody social and political elements, humanity, injustice, and hope.

Dan Voelker’s edgy art will pull at your hopes, fears, doubts, and suspicions. It’s cerebral art, with a depth that goes beyond face value. The creation of the art is not always easy – Dan equates it to math problems, equations where a solution must be found.

Most pieces do not have a preconceived notion before the charcoal hits the page. Rather, a few strokes are made and in time, images appear. His work often shows organic forms mixed with unorganic, metal like elements. You may see faces with marks on cheeks, perhaps manifestation in art of the steel plate implanted in Dan’s cheek the severe beating to the face.

Even though this traumatic event occurred at a music venue, Dan continues to use music for inspiration, and to unlock his mind while drawing. “Music is a vehicle to the art. It allows me to daydream, to be able to unlock my mind and go to a familiar place where I can bring back shapes and lines that ultimately become the components of the unknown puzzle. Music helps me ignore what is going on, ignore the room, outside distractions, to focus on the melody rhythm and vocals. By getting to that state of mind I’m able to come back with his abstract view of things conveyed in my art pieces”

Dan’s art speaks from the soul through experience. Dan would be the first to tell you he creates his art for no one – “Art is the ultimate freedom. It allows for complete control, and the freedom to lose all control.”