Daniel Bernunzio

I experience pareidolia all the time, seeing a bunny in a puffy cloud or the windows and doors on a house as a face; this is a common human experience. I bring attention to this in my wood-grain landscapes I call Staintings. The viewer can relate to what I see as the thing that is and isn’t there.

With my Staintings, the material informs the concept, and living my life informs my creative process. On a job site years ago, I noticed that the contoured wood grain on a scrap of plywood looked like the silhouette of the Olympic Mountains at dusk. I brought that wood scrap back to my studio where I enhanced the wood grain with paint stain and I added tree silhouettes; the finished product was Stainting #1. Now I automatically scan every piece of wood I see for a wood grain horizon line.

Working for years in the fine art services industry and as a professional house painter have equipped me in two ways to create Staintings: first is the expertise I gained in painting and woodworking techniques, and second is the ongoing supply of salvagable scrap materials to up-cycle into artwork, which is highly valuable to me. I also make all my frames from scrap wood.

I often hear from people how inspirational my work is to them. Staintings encourage that spark of creativity that a person can practice in their own work, their own way of seeing this world with a fresh perspective.