DJG Biography
Born to Missouri farmers during a late 1970s blizzard, DJG (aka: Danny J. Gibson, DJG Design, Dee Jay Gee or DJGKCMOUSA) is a critically acclaimed and prolific visual artist based in Kansas City, MO USA since 2002. Earliest influences include the apple on records by The Beatles, farming logos, sports team mascots, animals, movies, graffiti, handmade things, comic books, Jim Henson, ’80s culture and architecture. Mixing all that with a current state of context, DJG has been compared to in artistic dialogue, spirit and work ethic to artists such as Ray Johnson, Henryk Tomaszewski, Ivan Chermayeff, Lester Beall, James Castle, Saul Steinberg, Edward Gorey, Seymour Chwast, Bill Traylor and Henry Darger…
Guided by deft eyes and hands at the respected school of design at Southwest MO State University (aka: Missouri State), DJG left studies prematurely to gather steady attention in the independent music art community for many years. Currently taking a significant step aside from music graphics to combine the day-to-day of where the heart makes it with the gut in a constant stream of personal projects and selected commission work, DJG is simply making things in a variety of ways. Aside from art and intertwined within, DJG has labored as a farmhand, house painter, groundskeeper, janitor, mental health and office servant and also known to travel a bit, read and write a lot, shoot tons of photographs, eat a lot and watch many movies…
Honored and fortunate, DJG has received prizes, recognition, publication and exhibition internationally (North America, Europe, Asia, Eurasia…) in the visual and graphic arts, typography, writing, sculpture, film making and photography. Such notables include: Type Directors Club, Print Magazine, Step Inside Design, AIGA, Creative Grab Bag, 1,000 Music Graphics, 1,000 Supreme CDs, The Typed Image, The Anatomy of Design, The Little Book of Creativity, Pitch’s Best Posters in Kansas City, University of California at Davis, Baton Rouge Art Gallery, Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Missouri State Fair, Missouri State Capital, National Public Radio, Frankfurt Germany Book Fair, Grafik Tasarim Turkey and DPI Taiwan…
Photography by: Cayla Kennedy (Age 5), 2009 / R.I.P to the kitty…