Danny Cole And His Technicolor Dreamscape
How one artist has created his own world, physically and digitally.
By Thomas J. Stanton
Photography by Zach Sokol
Published
Artist In Residence is a monthly featured artist. Each month, we profile an artist who creates original artwork for Byline's homepage. Just as we seek to give writers a byline, we seek to give artists space.
Danny Cole wants to share his world with you. Cole is a twenty-three-year-old multi-hyphenate artist and the visionary behind Creature World, an artistic infrastructure project of seemingly infinite permutations. “It’s a vibrant and colorful dreamworld,” explains Cole of his ever-evolving creation. He is fresh-faced and his hair is shorn whisker close. His “I Love My Haters” t-shirt is tucked tight into baggy jeans. He radiates with kinetic energy; this is both, I will learn, part of Cole’s inner workings and the effect of the buzzing atmosphere inside his Williamsburg duplex.
The space is adorned with Cole’s vibrant paintings, and during our conversation we are interrupted at various intervals by a team of what he calls “energetic young people.” These young people wait impatiently on the roof as Cole deliberates on all things Creature World, namely that it revolves more around an idea than it does a specific medium. He sums up the project’s lofty undertaking: “Its mission is to bring [a] world to life, in any way we can, so you can visit it. It’s the idea that you can hop on a spaceship and go to this magical universe.”