I have been painting all my life. Based on life’s experiences and adventures, my concepts and styles have changed over the years. I owe it all to my parents: Bernie and Arlene Daney. It all started when I was about five years old in Wilmington, Delaware. My mother signed me up for Thursday morning art classes at the Delaware Art Museum with Miss Ziggler.

My grandfather, Herman Gudehus, was an amazing landscape painter. He also painted billboard advertisements. At one point, he even painted The Last Super on panels in his studio and then installed them over the Jersey Turnpike. My mother always said, “I do not know how it skipped a generation. Greg, you can paint like my father, but I cannot.” Grandpa’s final painting is incomplete and rests on his easel in my living room. While painting it, he suffered a life-ending heart attack. We do not know what he was working on, what was completed, or where his final brush stroke occurred.

In elementary and high school, I always took art classes. I did the same at Mount St. Mary’s College to help balance my business and finance courses. My father recommended that I combine my new business degree with an art degree, and I was off to The Art Institute of Philadelphia and Atlanta.

My family was in the thoroughbred racing and breeding business, so I naturally began painting racehorses. I originally explored a blurred motion effect representing the speed of the horse. Focusing on the blurred movement invites you to pull together and complete the painting. It invited you to participate in the painting and complete the painting.

While working in the Atlanta marketing, graphic design, and printing industries, I would paint in the evenings. My parents asked me to paint one of their horses but did not want any of that “funny stuff you do.” They also had a couple of friends who wanted paintings. I quickly learned owners want to see as much detail, strength, and power of their horses. They wanted to see their thoroughbred as an athlete. These commissions led to painting the official paintings and publishing limited-edition prints for 1992-1994 Chrysler Triple Crown Challenge. The winning jockeys signed the prints, so it was an awesome experience for me.

The Triple Crown work resulted in a call to create the 1991 Pan-American Games Three-Day Event’s Official Painting. The painting was selected for the 1992 American Academy of Equine Arts Juried Exhibit at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington Kentucky. Steeplechase-themed paintings followed the Winterthur Museum Point-to-Point in Greenville Delaware. Paintings for the Atlanta Polo Club, Delaware Park and numerous commissions kept me focused on the thoroughbred.

In-between the thoroughbred work, the Atlanta Braves played their way to the top of Major League Baseball. In the bottom of the ninth with two outs, Sid Bream slid over home plate to win the 1992 National League Championship Series and send the Braves to the World Series. My good friend Chris Hamilton was the Braves photographer and captured the moment on film. We conceptualized the “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” painting and print. The play is simply known as “Sid’s Slide” and is still the greatest play in the history of Atlanta Braves baseball.

The success of “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” led to “The Rotation” that captures the Braves incredible pitching rotation of Steve Avery, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz executing the sequence of a pitch on a single mound.

It was time for a change from Sporting Art so I conceptualized Floating Features. When I became a new father, suddenly my free time to paint became limited. I began exploring ways to paint this beautiful, amazing daughter of mine that could be done quicker. The goal was to only paint her eyes, eyebrows, and the top lip. Of course, no skin. The hair color will match the eye color. With a white background, the features are highlighted. The features “float.” And your imagination completes the incomplete portrait. It was the perfect new concept until a little girl had green eyes and red hair! The perfect concept no longer worked so I did not paint for about a year. With a great deal of push from family and friends, I started painting again. The hair matches the child’s hair but still with a little flair. Young children look a little older as you focus on their features. Older people look younger as I do not paint their skin. The Floating Features concept expanded to include adults, cats, and dogs and even one of my dad’s racehorses.

As my daughter became older and I had more free time, I became an avid outdoorsman hunting whitetail deer and turkey. I conceptualized My Trophy Buck. This was a new and original concept for the outdoorsmen to show off their trophy buck. I created a unique graphic image of your trophy buck’s rack. I drew your trophy buck’s rack and then created a unique logo with your harvest date, location, and score. I then applied your custom logo to window decals, apparel, and laser etched cutting boards and glassware. The success of My Trophy Buck led to GA DEER, and USA DEER lines of merchandise.

In 2018, I started a new corporate career in the banking industry that did not allow me to manage the design volume and travel to tradeshows throughout the Southeast and My Trophy Buck languished from my adventures in the 8am-6pm corporate grind. I retired in 2024. My passion for painting came back to me when a previous client requested portraits of their new grandkids, daughters, and even themselves. Floating Features was back! The energy sparked new creative ideas and concepts. All the changes over the years have created my new career as a full-time painter. It is now time to introduce Daney Art, LLC.