Daniel Arango (b. 1982, Colombia) is an artist, architect, designer, and farmer whose practice moves fluidly between art, architecture, performance, and lived experience. After completing his MFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, Arango embarked on a long-term creative and spiritual journey, working nomadically for over fifteen years across more than seventy countries. His work is shaped by the places he has inhabited and the people he has encountered, unfolding as layered narratives of memory, desire, and imagined futures.
A lifelong sense of displacement runs through Arango’s work. At the age of three, he was taken from Colombia to Miami by his grandparents—an early rupture that left an enduring imprint on his identity. Memories of the Carnival de Barranquilla, tropical birds, and Caribbean color linger alongside later influences, from the beaches and Latin cultures of Miami to the dense grids, structures, and rhythms of New York City, where he studied and worked for many years. These shifting geographies converge in work infused with movement, sensuality, and spiritual inquiry.
With meticulous craftsmanship and an eye for the unseen, Arango creates immersive worlds through a hybrid language of digital drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, and film. His work is densely layered with imagery—buildings, bodies, plants, animals, gods, sexuality, food, and digestion—balancing deliberate structure with organic intervention. Many works combine digital printing and hand painting, narrating encounters with nature, people, and environments while blending history with contemporary culture. His sculptural practice often takes the form of temples, altars, confessionals, and shrines that function as sites of ritual, desire, and reflection.
Arango’s recent work expands architecture in nature and into lived sculpture. He is currently building large glass, cube-like structures at his olive farm in Portugal, inspired by classical Greek temples and minimalist architecture. These structures function both as artworks and inhabitable spaces; one serves as his studio, where he works directly with stone and marble sourced from the land to create sculptures and ceramics. He is also developing shrine-like structures inspired by Thai spirit houses and classical temples, incorporating figurines, offerings, and ritual objects through a combination of 3D printing, traditional materials, and handcraft.
His practice further extends into consumer culture and systems of exchange, including the creation of organic cereals, packaging, and the conceptual design of a supermarket as an architectural artwork. Parallel to this, Arango is developing The Spirit House (of Daniel)—a temporary inhabitable structure high in the Colombian Andes, conceived as both shelter and studio, and as a monument to travel, ritual, and a peaceful future.
Arango received an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (2010), a BFA in Interior Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York City (2005), and studied interior architecture at the Instituto Europeo di Design in Madrid (2004). He has worked extensively in New York City and internationally.
Education
2010 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA
Master of Fine Arts, Honors, Painting
2005 School of Visual Arts, New York, USA
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Interior Design
2004 Istituto Europeo di Design, Madrid, Spain
Interior Architecture studies
Exhibitions
2018
Installation at Faena for Art Basel Week, Miami Beach, USA, December
What goes around comes to art, Herrick Gallery, London, UK, November
2016
Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair, Misc. Press, MOCA, Los Angeles, USA, February
2015
Exchange, Your Art, Your Space, Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland, May
2014
Daniel Arango vs. Kevin Arnold: Faith as Model, Able Fine Art, New York, USA, December
The Blonde Salad Party, Le Bain, The Standard, New York, USA, September
The 21st Annual Summer Benefit, The Watermill Center, Watermill, NY, USA, July
2013
Gallery Nights Season Finale 2013, SLS Hotel, Miami Beach, USA, November
“It’s All About The Kids” Benefiting St. Jude Children’s, JW Marriott, Miami, USA, October
Noches De Galerias, Katsuya By Stark at SLS Hotel, Miami Beach, USA, September
Storytellers and Mystics, Art Connects New York, Brooklyn, USA, May
2012
Verge Art Fair, Ess Callahan Projects Gallery, New York, USA, May
COME AND GET IT!, Hendershot Gallery, New York, USA, March
2011
Petite-Mort- Recollections, forever & today, inc., New York, USA, September
Voyage Issue XXXX Magazine, Big Screen Plaza, New York, USA, September
Cocktails At Sunset, Hosted By Steven Klein, Bridgehampton, USA, July
ACRIA’s Unframed, 123 Third Avenue Penthouse, New York, USA, May
The ART OF LOVE, Milk Gallery, New York, USA, March
2010
New Contemporaries, RISD Museum Gelman Gallery, Providence, USA, July
Whatever Forever, Black Sheep Projects, Providence, USA, May
Graduate Thesis Show, RI Convention Center, Providence, USA, May
2009
T-Shirt Collection for Art Basel, The Webster, Miami, USA, December
crit 4, Spencertown Academy Arts Center, Spencertown, USA, August
2008
Graduate Painting, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, USA, September
2007
GLAAD OutAuction, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, USA, October
American Slide-All, New York Studio Gallery, New York, USA, January
2006
Eric are you there? Solo Exhibition, Ninth Studio, New York, USA, October
Art.B.Q, East River Bar, Brooklyn, USA, June
2005
Senior Thesis Show, National Arts Club, New York, USA, April
2003
SVA Exhibition, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York, USA February
2002
SVA Exhibition, School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York, USA, January
Honors, Awards and Grants
2011 The Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL
2010 Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Nominee
2008 RISD Graduate Trustee Scholarship
2005 Best Thesis Winner
2003 First Place Winner for Herman Miller Competition
2001 Four Years Silas H. Rhodes Merit Chairman’s Scholarship