Miss Bentworthy-Jones, 2023

The artist cultivates the conditions of breakthrough syntax through the group dynamics of painting, language, context, political immediacy, and personal memory. The strong societal forces of alienation and assimilation prompt the artist toward situations that can renew a sense of relation, even if conceptual or abstract in nature. Representational, often figurative oil painting provides a body and gravity for his ideas on detachment, doubt, and risk to form. In his 2021 epic experimental novel, Wenzel Beckenbauer, each paragraph corresponds to one day in the mental texture of its protagonist; the artist’s practice as a whole mobilizes system and improvisation to capture evasive shades of awareness. A construct emerges out of his iconoclastic arrangements that imagines hypothetical revision to habits of thinking.

Danny Bredar was born in 1992 in Denver, CO, and lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his MFA from SAIC in 2019 and his BA from Harvard University in 2014. His work has been exhibited at the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, Room 1423 (solo, 2025); The Frame NYC (solo, 2025); Frieze London (solo, 2024); Dallas Invitational (with Pippa Garner, 2023); STARS, Los Angeles (solo, 2022); The Arts Club of Chicago (with Leah Ke Yi Zheng, 2022); Caffé Centrale, Monte Castello di Vibio, Umbria (with Leah Ke Yi Zheng and Adrian Wong, 2022); Soccer Club Club, Chicago (with Leah Ke Yi Zheng, 2021); Sandbox Industries, Chicago (solo, 2019); and Extase, Chicago (solo, 2018). Group exhibitions include The Green Gallery (2024), Winter Street Gallery (2024), Tureen (2023), David Lewis Gallery (2022), Rhona Hoffman Gallery (2022), The Arts Club of Chicago (2022 and 2020), and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (2014). Bredar is a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received a 2019-22 Fellowship at The Arts Club of Chicago, three Harvard Distinction in Teaching Awards, and the 2011 Sydney J. Williams Traveling Fellowship for the Visual Arts (Paris). His work is in the collection of the ICA Miami.

Approaching Capture, installed at the Carpenter Center, 2014

Velázquez Bowls, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021

Wenzel Beckenbauer, novel and other works installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022

Brown Paper Canvas, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022

Two Program Authors, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022

Install at Caffé Centrale, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy, 2022

Anarchist’s Vacation, installation view of STARS exhibition, 2022

Installation view of Frieze London solo booth with STARS, 2024

Control, installation view of Trump Tower exhibition, 2025

Control, installation view of Trump Tower exhibition, 2025

Control, installation view of Trump Tower exhibition, 2025

Coltrane and Miles (WDCB), installed at David Lewis Gallery, 2022

Bin Laden Painting, installed at Tureen, 2023

Extended Chessboard, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022

Turin Horse, installed at Frieze London, 2024

Gorodovoi, installed at Frieze London, 2024

Song, installed at Frieze London, 2024

Mantis, installed at Frieze London, 2024

Fox in Snow (Beatles), installed at STARS, 2022

3rd Person Perspective, installed at STARS, 2022

Flagellation with Rocks, installed at STARS, 2022

Cadillac Rental, installed at STARS, 2022

Arezzo, installed at STARS, 2022

Idi. o. T. with Apples, installed at Dallas Invitational, 2023

Markus Eder, installed at Dallas Invitational, 2023

Odysseus through Zero, 2024

Black Knife, 2020

Crucifixion, after Masaccio, 2019

Ophelia, installed at STARS, collection of the ICA Miami, 2022

Ophelia 2, Beth DeWoody Collection, 2023

Foucault, 2019

Insurrection, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021

Battery, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021

Greenumber, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021

Golden Fleece Sign, 2018

Pope, 2011

Cylinder, 2011

Lead Model 1, installed at The Frame NYC, 2025

Lead Model 2, installed at The Frame NYC, 2025

Wenzel Beckenbauer, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022

Approaching Capture, installed at the Carpenter Center, 2014