Daniela Wenzel was born in 1978 in the German Democratic Republic.
She grew up in a small town heavily influenced by porcelain art, a 250 year old local tradition. Because artistically inclined children were well supported in and outside of school, she started working in sculpting with clay, drawing and painting at an early age. As a child she enjoyed creating over sized chalk drawings spanning the street in front of her home and painting murals on rolled out sheets of paper on the walls of her room. She received her first set of oil paints at age sixteen, and still prefers this medium over others. Growing up in the mountainous countryside of her native Thuringia she was encouraged to freely explore nature, play, hike and forage in the forests surrounding her home. Being born in Jena, Thuringia she found herself immersed in the rich history, the writings of Goethe and Schiller and often visited Weimar, the cradle of the Bauhaus movement, which influenced her artistic development greatly. Even though she didn’t grow up in an artistic household, her lineage was full of artisans and craftspeople in glassblowing, porcelain painting and woodworking. During her childhood she was taught to use her hands in an array of crafts and skills. She still enjoys working in textile and fiber arts.
After attending college and becoming a medical professional, she attended drawing classes at night in Munich, deepening her knowledge in depicting the human form. After immigrating to the United States in 2001 she followed up with figure painting classes at the MFA in Boston. After becoming a mother of three she continued to paint, but soon understood she would have to temporarily shift her creative focus. She started making quilts after the birth of her second child, referring to it as “painting with fabric”, and explored the use of other paint mediums. Recent works are of abstract character and renderings of biomorphic shapes and are rich in use of color and pattern.
Daniela currently resides in the state of New Hampshire with her husband and three children and works in painting, illustration and textile and fiber.