RIP Daniel Kayne
Noted Houston artist commits suicide by hanging: Found dead in his Temple studio
In 2011, Kayne traveled with fellow Houston artist Reginald Adams to produce asculptural piece at a children's hospital in France.
Kayne in a piece from April 2012Daniel Kayne/Facebook
The artist during a performance at the Orange Show
The Houston art world is mourning the loss of performance artist Daniel Kayne, who was found dead in his studio at 2300 McKinney on Monday — the victim of an apparent suicide by hanging. He was 44.
The artist, who professionally stylized his name as "daniel-kayne," made a splash on the local scene in 2008 when he walked away with top prizes at the Lawndale Big Show and at the first annual art exhibit through the Texas French Alliance for the Arts.
"Daniel Kayne was a dear friend and inspiring artist," Deborah Colton, who has showed the artist's work at her eponymous gallery, tells CultureMap, adding that she had just seen him at the recent Texas Contemporary Art Fair show. "This has really been a shock to all of us."
Kayne made a splash on the local art scene when he walked away with the top prize at the 2008 Lawndale Big Show.
Born and raised in the small east Texas town of Liberty, Kayne earned an MBA from the University of Houston in 2000 before turning to art full-time after taking painting classes at the Glassell School. After moving to New York in 2006 to take part in a residency program at the School of Visual Arts, he spent the next several years traveling Europe, Asia and the Middle East for a series of art projects.
It was a 2009 trip to the Hong Kong Art Fair, however, that made Kayne reconsider his role in the art industry. Soon thereafter, he returned to Houston to refocus his career away from creating material for the art market and towards installation work and performance pieces.
Since 2010, the artist has mounted well-received projects at DiverseWorks, the Orange Show and at his downtown studio (which he dubbed "The Temple"), while volunteering countless hours with AIDS Foundation Houston.
"Dearest Daniel Kayne," Deborah Colton wrote, "what was inside you has been and will continue to be an inspiration to thousands of people near and far."
"He seemed so high on life during that trip," Adams says. "He shared so much of his energy and vitality with the kids we worked with on the project . . . Daniel was a great guy."
In an email sent Tuesday, Deborah Colton recalled a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes that Kayne once shared online: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us.”
"Dearest Daniel Kayne," she wrote, "what was inside you has been and will continue to be an inspiration to thousands of people near and far. You will be greatly missed but your good spirit and how you made such a positive impact on so many in Texas, nationally and around the world will never leave us all."
At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Gallery M Squared (339 West 19th) will hold a special tribute to Kayne during the premiere screening of Collector's Waltz, a new documentary about Houston art collecting that features the artist and his work.
