Danielle Julian Norton is a Full Professor in Fine Arts at Columbus College of Art & Design, whose multidisciplinary practice examines the structures and conditions that shape perception, belief, and lived experience. Often working collaboratively, Norton combines materials, processes, and forms to foreground tension, contrast, and humor within a politically engaged practice. Motivated by what she describes as “patriarchal fatigue,” her recent work explores healing through relationships with plants, ecosystems, and speculative new beings while interrogating and dismantling entrenched power structures.
An influential educator and mentor, Norton was recognized with the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Educator Award, which honors artist-educators who have taught sculpture in higher education for more than fifteen years. Her work has been supported by an Ohio Arts Council Creativity Grant and a Greater Columbus Arts Council Germany Exchange Grant. She has participated in residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
Norton’s work has been exhibited nationally at venues including the Midwest Museum of American Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Cleveland MOCA, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Cynthia-Reeves in New York. She is also the founder of ZippityDirtDada, an ongoing collaborative and experimental platform. Her work has been reviewed in publications including the Boston Globe and Sculpture magazine.
Norton earned her BFA in Fine Arts from CCAD in 1999 and her MFA in Ceramics and Sculpture from the University of Notre Dame in 2002.
