Baker Artist Portfolios

Danni O’Brien is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Working across drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and installation, their practice is rooted in tinkering, irreverence, and queerness. O’Brien scavenges and collects discarded materials, creating enigmatic assemblages through ongoing acts of deconstruction and reconstruction. They employ processes such as gardening, paper-making, ceramic hand-building, mold making and casting, metalworking, woodworking, and assemblage to create post-human, cyborgian objects and worlds. O’Brien’s sculptures and installations have been featured in solo exhibitions with Visarts (Rockville, MD), Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (Arlington, VA), and Tephra ICA (Reston, VA). They have exhibited in small group exhibitions with Cleo Gallery (Savannah, GA), Belger Arts Center (Kansas City, MO), PFA Gallery (Washington, D.C.), and Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia, PA). Recent honors include the Trawick Grand Prize (2025), a nomination for the Joan Mitchell Fellowship (2025), and the Windgate Fellowship with Vermont Studio Center (2025). O’Brien has recently been an artist in residence with Byrdcliffe Colony (2023, 2024), Wassaic Project (2019, 2023), Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency (2023, 2024), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (2024). They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture, with a minor in art history and an art education license from James Madison University (2014, 2015).