Her form emerges from a gnarled tree trunk, a visual metaphor for resilience, ancestry, and the survival of inner truth. The composition is quiet, but full of tension. Though the figure is incomplete, there is a kind of embrace in the curvature of the pose—a protection or perhaps a memory of one. The trunk suggests grounding, memory, and pain. The black background isolates the form, creating space for the viewer to project their own reflection. The absence of the face is not a void but an invitation: to consider what identity remains when roles,expectations, and imposed labels are stripped away.
Rendered in oil, the surface shifts between soft gradients and rough textures, inviting close attention. I use traditional techniques but break realism at key moments to open symbolic space, creating not just a body, but a site of transformation. This piece is not only about what’s been lost—it’s about the potential for reclamation. For what still pulses under the surface. For what can rise again, even in pieces.
Details: This original artwork is a one-of-a-kind oil painting on an 18 x 24 inch wood panel framed in an ornate dark wood frame that measures 24 x 30 inches around the outside.
Danny Schreiber is a figurative painter, tattoo artist, musician, and founder of The Copper Wolf Tattoo Studio and Art Gallery based in Tumwater, WA. He holds a BFA in Illustration from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and is the 2025 Robert B. McMillen Foundation MAC Award winner. Using oil and graphite, Danny blends classical techniques with contemporary symbolism to craft visually intricate and emotionally resonant images that invoke contemplation and reflection in viewers.
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Oracles is a body of work that explores how identity is shaped and fragmented through systems of power, and can be reclaimed through reflection and courage. These paintings are not literal narratives but emotional reliquaries—portraits of memory, inheritance, and transformation. At their core, they ask: what parts of ourselves were we told to sever in order to belong? And what might still grow back?
Figures reference classical Greek sculpture, a nod to the Western ideals and philosophical roots that continue to shape cultural norms. However, the compositions fracture those ideals. Torsos are incomplete, objects hover, and backgrounds dissolve into voids. Each image holds tension between realism and surrealism, control and vulnerability, flesh and myth.
The Oracles are not simply about harm or conformity. They are about complexity. About what it means to live with contradiction. Each piece holds space for both the pain of what was lost and the potential of what remains. Rather than offering resolution, the paintings function as quiet questions. What was cut away? What was planted? What still pulses, even beneath the surface?
This series emerged from my own lived experience, but it extends outward, toward anyone who has felt shaped by expectation, silenced by care, or fractured by love. It is an offering, not of answers, but of witness.
Oracles invites viewers to pause and reflect. To see not just the figures on the panel, but their internal landscapes mirrored back to them. In that space between image and viewer, something else becomes possible: empathy, recognition, and maybe even regeneration.
Colors vary from screen to screen and are represented as accurately as possible. The oil paint and glossy, protective varnish creates shimmering textures depending on the angle of the viewer.
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