Dannah Mari Hidalgo (1994) is a Filipina-American artist based out of California and Oahu, Hawai‘i where she was born and raised. Hidalgo obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2019. Hidalgo has also attended the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute in Florence, Italy in 2015 and in 2016. Hidalgo recently received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2024. Hidalgo is a proud graduate of Leilehua High School, a Hawai‘i public school.
Hidalgo creates cacophonic narratives through a collage-like technique, identified as “double image.” Two images simultaneously existing on one surface, while still attempting to maintain distinction, compels the viewer to alternate between narratives -recognizing one in the context of another. The concept of double image reinforces dichotomous relationships: abstract and representational, severity and humor, depth and flatness, the brazen and tender, and resolve and tension.
Within the intersections of patriarchal and colonial structures of domestic spaces, servitude of the matriarch, and thus consequentially, of the daughter, is reflected upon in Hidalgo’s recent works. These structures condition women from early on to be self-sacrificing and dismissive of their individuality, personal interests, and pursuits, existing to bear the weight of domestic labor and servitude. The lineage of designated and assumed stewardship of domestic spaces is confronted, as well as the weight of maintaining communal spaces at the expense of the self. Through the exchange of figures between mother and daughter, Hidalgo looks to highlight fraught domesticity, while excising a departure that exemplifies brazen femininity. Within this dynamic, residual guilt, care, and tenderness seep between bursts of assertive mark making and layering.
