Excerpted essay from "The Tides of Provincetown" exhibition and
catalog at The New Britain Museum of American Art.
"Ranalli not only captures the timeless, elemental movements of the
sea, but he also documents how random human interaction with these
forces disrupts natural cycles. By collaborating with nature,
Ranalli produces a contemporary and personal yet environmental
reaction to the beauty of the Cape that is completely original. His
interest in natural history and concern for the future raises the
awareness of new ways to find inspiration in a landscape that has
been reproduced thousands of times as well as the need to protect
that very source."
Alexander Noelle, Curator
"What Will You Remember". Short review.
What Will You Remember. Summer short review
"I much preferred Daniel Ranalli's wonderful diptych of a bunch
of snails set up in a spiral (a miniaturized, art-world joke at the
expense of Robert Smithson's monumental Spiral Jetty and the whole
Earthworks crowd) who, in the next frame, have scattered, leaving
ridges behind them to proclaim their paths to freedom."
Debra Cash, Dance/Draw at the ICA
Arts Fuse
October 13, 2011
***
"Check out, in particular, Janine Antoni's exquisite "Butterfly
Kisses, " made by blinking her mascara-coated eyelashes against
paper (a kind of dance flirtation, strenuously committed to paper)
and Ranalli's "Snail Drawings"- before-and-after photos of snails
wandering out of the configurations in which he has placed
them."
Sebastian Smee, Dance/Draw at the ICA
The Boston Globe
October 9, 2011
***
“Closely tied to nature’s wonders, both its regular rhythms and
its constant change, Ranalli’s work sensitizes the viewer to the
daily spectacles of sea meeting land. His work straddles the
boundary between abstraction and realism. The forms he constructs
are geometric and abstract, yet they are set with real materials on
nature’s stage.”
Deborah Forman
Art New England, Ranalli’s Whims of Nature
January/February 2011
***
“Daniel Ranalli’s work is like performance art, but without an
audience. … the inspiration for much of his work comes from
nature…which he frequently arranges into patterns and forms. Much
of his work is reclaimed by the sea or altered by weather, and it
is that transience, that shape-shifting that marks his work. The
result is ethereal."
Kimberly Cornuelle
BU Today, Capturing the Ephemeral
November 17, 2010
***
"There's science in Ranalli's art as well—the science of
instruction, of one kind of teacher recognizing the artistry of his
colleagues, no matter what the field. Ranalli has altered his
photos with computer software to create these collages, giving a
semblance of order and elegance to a readymade world of otherwise
unrelated imagery."
Shawn Hill
Art New England, Daniel Ranalli: Chalkboards
June-July 2009
***
"[Ranalli's] chalkboards reveal more information than I could
have imagined. Erasures evoke the marks of a paintbrush. Bits of
scrawl chatter and squirm. Complete words or equations grab
attention like magnets. Then there's the surprising element of
color - who knew there were so many shades of green and gray?
Ranalli has even altered one to look gold. In all, these works
consider space, mark-making, and color in a distinctly painterly
manner."
Cate McQuaid
The Boston Globe, A Radiant 'Renaissance':
Exhibit Stresses Pure Form and Color
March 11, 2009
***
"The achingly vivid color photos capture a moment of perfect
harmony that a breeze will sweep away."
Cate McQuaid
The Boston Globe, Arts Gallery Pick
August 2006
***
"The works of Dan Ranalli... despite their imposed order and
structure, ultimately transmit the absolute truth: Everything
changes, moment to moment."
Marina Veronica
artsMEDIA, Natural Obsession
July 2005
***
"Although he continues to seek to uncover the relationships
between humans and nature, found and altered landscapes, and the
effects of chaos on momentarily imposed order, [Ranalli's] works
are infused with peace and tranquility."
Leon Nigrosh
artsMEDIA, A Mystic's Art
November 2003
***
"Minimally rearranging materials he encounters on his walks
through this volatile landscape, Ranalli creates a push-pull with
nature as he then watches his manipulations succumb to the
relentless forces of change."
Elli Crocker
Curator's Statement, Daniel Ranalli | Asian Work
September-November 2003
***
"'Zen Dune Garden' is the gentlest work by this artist that I've
seen, showing man's footprint on the earth as a collaboration with
nature, not nature's enemy."
Cate McQuaid
The Boston Globe, Meditating on Eastern Disciplines
in Provincetown
August 15, 2003
***
"As it is, they compliment each other. Where Ranalli is edgy and
provocative, Vevers is reflective and deep. And each knows what is
to have a passion for making things that express the subtle,
fleeting dilemmas that grace a human soul."
Cate McQuaid
The Boston Globe, A Creative Pairing On and Off Cape
August 12, 1999
***
"Ranalli particularly interweaves sensibilities culled from a
simultaneously rising consciousness of other cultures. His
sensitive, ephemeral work integrates bits of the British 'walkers'
Richard Long and Amish Fulton, the British artist Andy
Goldsworthy's delicate site constructions, native American
reverence for natural objects, Zen-like collaborations with natural
forces, and John Cage's riffs on randomness. Underlying these
elements is a solid appreciation for accessible formal constructs,
still the portal through which most viewers most readily pass."
Ann Wilson Lloyd
Exhibition Catalog Essay, Daniel Ranalli: Projects +
Photographs
December 1993
***
"On the formal level, Ranalli acts like a 19th-century gentleman
scientist, arranging materials, photographing them in
straightforward style, mostly in black and white, and writing
labels for them with his own hand. In content, though, the work is
poetic, elegiac."
Christine Temin
The Boston Globe, Mingling Scientific Detachment and
Personal Passion
December 7, 1989
***
"Ranalli's objective is akin to the credo of the 1950s abstract
expressionist painters: effecting a spiritual rejuvenation in the
beholder of the art."
Gerald Perry
Boston Magazine, Boston Photography
December 1983
***