Danielle Sabey filled the walls of the Art Lab with her latest work “Connections”this past weekend. Our once lonely walls are now adorned with the thoughtful art of Danielle. It’s a wonderful collection, and it’s available for all to see. If you see something you really like, you can make Danielle an offer and take a piece home with you. Stop by this weekend to see for yourself.

We asked Danielle to share her vision for this work with us. Here’s what she had to say about it in her artist’s statement:

What connects us and how are we connected? What sort of moral lines do we draw? What defines us? I do not attempt to answer any of these questions, but merely to observe. We are a bunch of people stuck with a bunch of other people. We are souls stuck with bodies.

We meet other souls and bodies and a connection must occur. What is that connection like? Should we care for it? How do we care for it? A line is drawn for what to do. A mark is made. This becomes mark making with redrawing and erasing and adding on. The pictures we draw become us. Life leaves traces.

There is an internal battle within us all. A way in which we connect, or don’t, to what is inside of us. What drives these battles, what are they about and what happens once there is a victor of the battle declared? Is the battle victorious because a victor was declared or will it become a tyranny? Our decisions are influencing our environment.

There is an exterior battle within us all. A way in which we connect, or don’t, to the social structures surrounding us. We are defined within our social structure. The lines drawn by the power of the masses seem clear: black and white. How do we adjust for the deficit of error? Are we victims? Our environment is influencing our decisions.

It seems to me that these inner battles have a lot to do with conflicts between our inner self and our outer self, arising from the tension between the individual man and the man as part of a society. We are left to juggle both, for I am one and we are all.

Man as a microcosm; made up of smaller entities of self; society as a macrocosm made up of all of man; the human race as a body itself, made up of millions of microcosms. What makes the individual, who is made up of infinitely smaller parts, differ from the masses, which is made up of uncountable individuals. Both are bodies.

What is unity? Our own physical individual microcosms are unified. Our own particles do not war against each other. Is that unity? Perhaps the merging of the people’s will to the will of the masses, just like the particles in our bodies. But are even the particles that make up our bodies really unified? What really does connect us?

Alas, we are connected, moral lines are drawn, and we are defined. We are humans, we are mankind.

Danielle’s art will share the Art Lab space throughout this weekend. Stop in Friday night to hear the Art Lab Rats perform some of their more “human story” inspired musical selections. The Community Paint By Number project is shaping up nicely, too. There’s plenty of painting left to do, so grab your paint shirt and head to the Art Lab this weekend.

Want to see more of Danielle’s work on the Web? Check out Her Blog.