NIGHTBURN – Daphne Sweet

Saturday, June 14th – Saturday July 26th

Nightburn is an embodied myth moving through mountains and memory. In this work, I merge western iconography with goddess myths and feminine power, blurring the line between human, land, and legend.

My paintings depict towering women intertwined with the landscape—cosmic figures cradling portals and starlight. There is a sensuality in their forms and gestures, and a playfulness woven into their presence. My ceramics serve as ceremonial relics: vessels and figures etched with dreamlike stories of saints, cowgirls, and goddesses, balancing reverence with whimsy.

Rooted in western terrain and matriarchal storytelling, Nightburn explores the body as landscape, the vessel as storyteller, and fire as both destruction and rebirth.

 This is the nightburn of a fluorescent moon.

Bio:

Daphne Sweet (b. 1996, Los Angeles, CA) is a visual artist based in Butte, Montana, working in painting and ceramics. Her work weaves personal narrative with myth, exploring themes of femininity, power, and transformation. Through intricate linework and a vivid, symbolic use of color, she creates imagined worlds inhabited by celestial figures, animals and relics.

Influenced by a matriarchal upbringing and a lifelong interest in storytelling, Sweet’s work blurs the line between the intimate and the archetypal. She holds a BFA in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Montana. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including solo shows at Visions West Contemporary (Denver, CO) and The Palace Gallery (Ellensburg, WA), and has been featured in DARIA Magazine and The Washington Post.