Dana Lynn Harper is a sculptor and installation artist who has spent all of her childhood and creative career in the Midwest. She is a professor at the Columbus College of Art & Design and her work focuses on the complexities of racial identity and the connection between the natural world and ancestral knowledge. Her current sculptures emerge as ritualistic votives for offerings and ceremony, fusing familial history with spiritual regality. Harper holds a BFA in Art & Technology from The Ohio State University, she lives and works in Columbus, Oh. Recipient of The Bunton Waller Fellowship from Penn State University, she received her MFA in 2013. She has been the recipient of an ArtPrize Artist Seed Grant and The ArtFile Emerging Artist Grant, Ringholz Foundation Award, OAC Professional Award and Manifest Prize. She has had solo exhibitions across the US, most notably at Sculpture Center, The University of Kentucky, Auburn University, Front/Space Gallery & Museum, Manifest Gallery & ROY G BIV. Harper was an Artist in Residence at Kutztown University, Teton Art Lab, Bunker Projects, Sculpture Space & ArtSpace Raleigh. In 2015 she was awarded a scholarship from The NEA to attend Women’s Studio Workshop and received a fellowship from Vermont Studio Center in 2022. In 2025, Harper received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Award of Excellence and The Greater Columbus Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship. Harper has made public installations in collaboration with The Columbus Museum of Art, Otherworld and Wonderspaces.

‘Working hard’ is a deeply rooted familial value, and is carried out in my practice through acts of repetitive ornamentation. The meticulous placement of small pearls, shells, individual grains of rice, and gold beads is a method of creation and a vehicle for ancestral reverence. The physical creation engages my body through material processes that echo traditional cooking practices, creating a kinesthetic link to my immediate family as we fall into the same rhythms, motions, and forms. As I knead paper clay, I see the hands of my grandmothers making dumplings; I see my mother rinsing rice as it runs through my fingers. These moments of crossover occur through embodied resonance, creating a physical and spiritual connection, transforming meditative labor into intergenerational communion. The interplay of materials and photographs create a space for exploration and immersion into a culture that is both intimately familiar and subtly distant, allowing for reflection, reclamation, and a profound sense of belonging.