Figurative Works
Over the last three decades, Dai has painted, drawn, and sculpted thousands of human and animal forms, both realistic and fanciful. In their portraiture, Dai overlays astute understanding of form with deep appreciation of spirit. Through their figurative works, Dai captures what it means to be alive, loved by and attuned to this world.
Holding Center
2025
Situated deep in Cherry Creek Canyon in Hesperus, Colorado, the winds are always blowing. Blizzard, flood, and scorching sun all find their homes in this canyon. The people that live there are a different breed, unswayed by the throws of life, always finding gratitude and holding center.
Kairos
2025
The greek had two words for time. One, kronos, was time as we know it: linear and predictable. The other, kairos, was a type of time we all know but don't always have words for. Kairos moves non linearly: a moment may feel like a lifetime or years may go by without us knowing where they went.
Kairos honors the way that love can shift us out of patterns and routines, somethings pushing us to change in ways we didn;t know ere possible, sometimes allowing time to stand still, but all the while allowing us to enter a time outside of time.
Sunblood
2025
Years ago, I found myself in a monsoon pattern rainstorm in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. As a wilderness guide, I was not concerned, but I was also well aware of the need for action. Looking around, I found two old spruce trees, holding warmth and dryness benieth their bows. Their lower branches were dead and dry, and crystalized sap created jewels along their bark. From their dead limbs and crystal blood I was able to easily make a small fire that kept my body and spirit warm throughout the storm. I thianked the trees for their protection and the sun for feeding these trees and for its ever predictable return.
Somewhere Liminal
2025
This painting is set deep in the wild lands of the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. That land is so vibrantly alive with trees that can only be described as desert giants, foxes that scream out in the night, and wild waters that shape and reshape rugged canyons.
Amongst the wildness there is a serenity I feel, knowing that I am safely nested in the fabric of this intact wild world.
Held by fire, self, loved ones, and the world, I breathe easy and thoughts drift into a quiet knowing.
So Right
2025
The strength that I love in you is one of a fighter. It is the strength of knowing yourself and holding on through all storms. It is a strength of body tending, of intention and persistence and perseverance. It is a strength that you have lovingly grown that permeates all of you, not just a show of muscles and teeth, but an unshakable power.
There is a toughness and ruggedness about you that only tell half the story. It is the softness and the tenderness that you hold, not in opposition to your strength, but as part of it that make you the beautiful force in the world that you are.
An Otter at Summit Lake
2025
I've spent a lot of time wandering around muddy places looking at wild life tracks, but when I saw the five toes of a bounding otter, I took a double take. This wasn't a place I had ever known an otter to be.
It wasn't until days later when I saw them face to face, bobbing there neck and body towards me that I truly believed what I had already known.
I never saw them or their prints there again, but I haven't forgotten them or their reminder to be curious, keep looking, and trust myself.
Fox Dreams
2025
Sleep well my dear one. Sleep safe and held. May you dream sweet dreams and wake to a welcoming world anew.
On Night's Wings
2025
A poem by Wendell Berry:
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
Sleeping Ute at Sunset
2024
Just north of where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, there is a place called Bug Point. Very few people spend time there these days, but the land is covered in pottery shards and worked stones, that all tell a tale of a time passed.
When I find myself on that land, especially in winter when the light is dim, there is a quiet that comes into me and an aliveness that I feel all around. When I am there, it's as if the land is whispering, "welcome, we've missed you." When I am there, I exhale.
Come on, Gal!
2025
Inspired by Ursula LeGuin's 1987 short story, Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight, this painting tells the story of a otherworldly invitation to come see the vastness of the southwest mountain forest desert as seen by the wild ones who have always called this place home.
Come Sit By My Fire
2024
This piece was created for Turquoise Raven Gallery in Cortez, CO which held an exhibit titled Threads in our Tapestry for Pride Month 2024. In rural Colorado, it can take a lot of courage for a business to choose to celebrate and honor the queerness. Much gratitude goes out to Mary Fuller for her bravery.
A bit about this piece:
There are so many parts of ourselves that we have learn to shun, to banish, to hide away. The path of healing is a path of wholing. Come Sit By My Fire encourages us all to invite those parts of ourselves that have been hidden back into the light and back into the warmth. It invites us to meet all parts of ourselves again, this time with love.
When Summer Met Autumn
2024
Based on a poem by Cara Siler:
Was there ever a night so soft and sweet
As when summer and autumn here did meet
They scampered and swayed upon the breeze
And shook the fruit down from the trees
They tumbled and danced among the grass
To celebrate the seasons pass
They frolic and skip all through the farms
And summer falls in autumns arms
In colored leaves she’s laid to bed as autumn’s lips rest on her head
Goodnight sweet summer Goodnight she sings
I’ll see you next year after winter springs
Thank you Cara for sharing your beautiful words with me and allowing me to be so inspired by them.
To Be Human Is To Be Held By The World
2024
We hold so much. We hold ourselves, our children, and all those who need our protection and softness But we too need to be held. And we are. To be human is to be held by the world.
We'll Be Here
2024
A poem by Adrienne Rich:
Prospective Immigrants Please Note
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.
Mama Mancos
2021
The original sketch for this painting was drawn sitting amongst the scrub oaks at the base of the La Plata Mountains north of Mancos, CO.
Mama Mancos is an honoring of the abundance and aliveness of the land. The sleeping pregnant figure is a representation of mother earth: her flesh and blood are the hills and valleys and rivers. Her body gives life to all the plants and animals that root and walk upon her. This painting is one of acknowledgement and gratitude.