Cynthia Daignault approaches painting as a long form act, treating it as a cinematic, durational medium. Interested in narrative and time-based work, she experiments with bringing those concepts and histories into painting, with memory, history and landscape being some of the ideas she addresses. Daignault looks for subject matter outside of her studio, exploring ways to imbue her images with meaning. For past projects, she has painted the sky every day for a year, the same view of trees for 40 days and nights, and in 2015, Daignault travelled around the entire circumference of America, stopping every 25 miles to paint the scene before her. Such endeavors require uncertainty and endurance, and in completed works, this translates to a sense of narrative and emotional weight.
Cynthia Daignault (b. 1978, Baltimore, MD) received a BA in Art and Art History from Stanford University. She has presented solo exhibitions and projects at many major museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, MASS MoCA, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and White Columns. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Daignault is a regularly published author, and her writings have been published in a range of publications. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a 2016 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Award, a 2011 Rema Hort Foundation Award, and a 2010 Macdowell Colony Fellowship. She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.