BIO

NEVER GROW UP. IT’S A TRAP.

Jimmy Danko was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and raised on the outskirts of the city, where suburbs met farmland. The irresistible lure of corn fields, woods and homemade forts set the backdrop for his imagination fueled adventures with colorful plastic figures and characters. It was this catalog of reference that would eventually feature so prominently in his art. Years later, his love of painting was fully cemented during his time at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he received his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. Brief stints working as a graphic designer propelled his focus on craft and composition. But art was where his heart was and the lure of adventure won out once more, taking him from San Diego surf to the streets of Argentina, where he began to propagate his trademark Gorilla all around his home in Buenos Aires.

After several years in South America, he made his way back to the U.S. and took up residence in his current downtown Los Angeles Arts District studio, where he continues his adventures in wood, paint and metal. His bold and colorful approach to art explores the perception of memories and mass cultural imagery through oil painting realism, juxtaposed against vibrant graphic elements from fragmented and reimagined iconic commercial designs. By constructing his canvases in wood, he finds equal satisfaction from the physicality of building his sculptural paintings as he does in painting them.