Daniel Colen (born 1979) is an American artist based in New York.
Colen is a contemporary artist who has become a major success from his irreverent approach to creating his works. Across various media, through using graffiti, gum, bird droppings, and Disney films to produce culturally complex and brash paintings, sculptures, and installations. “A lot of my work is about what’s abstract and what’s pictorial, Is it bubblegum, or is it an abstract painting using bubblegum? The energy comes from walking that line and watching things dip this way and that.” Born in 1979 in Leonia, NJ, he studied at the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to New York City in the early 2000s. There, he became part of a downtown milieu of young male artists like Dash Snow, Jordan Wolfson, and Ryan Trecartin who made waves with their confrontational and hedonistic drug-fueled aesthetic. In 2006, he held his first major show titled “Potty Mouth Potty War” in the bathrooms of the Gagosian Gallery in New York, quickly selling out the entire exhibition. Since then, Colen’s works have been acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. The artist lives and works in New York, NY.