Miss Bentworthy-Jones, 2023, oil on canvas, 19 x 16 in.
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 (2026, 2022, 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, oil on two canvases, 98 x 62 in.
Bin Laden Painting, installed at Tureen, 2023, oil on canvas, 36 x 38 in.
Extended Chessboard, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022, oil on canvas, 9 x 15 in.
Turin Horse, installed at Frieze London, 2024, oil on canvas, 13 x 21 in.
Gorodovoi, installed at Frieze London, 2024, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in.
Song, installed at Frieze London, 2024, oil on canvas, 28 x 40 in.
Mantis, installed at Frieze London, 2024, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in.
Fox in Snow (Beatles), installed at STARS, 2022, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in.
3rd Person Perspective, installed at STARS, 2022, oil on canvas, 46 x 36 in.
Flagellation with Rocks, installed at STARS, 2022, oil on canvas, 36 x 60 in.
Cadillac Rental, installed at STARS, 2022, oil and sumi ink on canvas, 18 x 22 in.
Arezzo, installed at STARS, 2022, oil on canvas, 12 x 15 in.
Idi. o. T. with Apples, installed at Dallas Invitational, 2023, oil on canvas, 30 x 42 in.
Markus Eder, installed at Dallas Invitational, 2023, oil on canvas, 14 x 15 in.
Odysseus through Zero, 2024, oil on canvas, 60 x 36 in.
Black Knife, 2020, oil on canvas, 72 x 68 in.
Crucifixion, after Masaccio, 2019, oil on canvas, 72 x 84 in.
Ophelia, installed at STARS, collection of the ICA Miami, 2022, oil on canvas, 30 x 72 in.
Ophelia 2, Beth DeWoody Collection, 2023, oil on canvas, 30 x 72 in.
Foucault, 2019, ceramic, 4 x 7 x 9 in.
Insurrection, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021, drawing on utensil sleeve attached to oil on canvas, 9 x 15 in.
Battery, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021, pillowcase fabric within car battery height adapter on paper, 7 x 11 x 1 in.
Greenumber, installed at Soccer Club Club, 2021, matches on t-shirt fabric within Old Holland box, 4.5 x 3 x 4.5 in.
Golden Fleece Sign, 2018, inkjet print on wood, 5.5 x 13 x 1 in.
Pope, 2011, oil on glass over poster
Cylinder, 2011, steel and magnets, 13 x 9 x 9 in.
Lead Model 1, installed at The Frame NYC, 2025, oil on canvas, 44 x 22 in.
Lead Model 2, installed at The Frame NYC, 2025, oil on canvas, 44 x 30 in.
Wenzel Beckenbauer, installed at The Arts Club of Chicago, 2022, novel, 459 p., 8 x 6 x 1 in.
Approaching Capture, installed at the Carpenter Center, 2014, artist book, 1,044 p., 12 x 9 x 2 in.