Featured image: Eyes Open, Heart Safe

Eyes Open, Heart Safe

A fixture at our door, the blue and white eye, known in Persian as the cheshm nazar, was a greeting of comfort. A symbol of protection, it wards off harm. My Persian grandmother gave me my first Evil Eye bracelet at six. With nowhere to unpack my grief due to Westernized parents, the Mexican ritual of Ancestral remembrance and Altar creation for Day of the Dead was a safe spot to unload my luggage.

Altar creation became a reprieve. I found safety in the iconography – the Calavera, Cempasuchil, Mariposa, Sagrado Corazón. Discovering the “el mal de ojo” in Mexican folk art, combined with the Sagrado Corazón, felt like a direct call from my late Persian grandmother. Two things of sanctity, merging my childhood and adulthood. Two seemingly unrelated things drew me to my identity through art and healing. From the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico, I’m here.

Danielle Revives‘ exhibition is on view from September 11 – November 4th, 2025

Danielle Revives is a San Francisco born, Hawai’i raised self-taught
artist and altar creator. Her preferred medium of altars are used
as a three-dimensional sacred platform to highlight the lives of
her Ancestors and a way to create a passage from the Universe
to the Earth. Her work is inspired by the Day of the Dead in the
Mesoamerican tradition, but with a cross-cultural and
contemporary aesthetic, always with an ethos of ethics,
reusability, and sustainability.

She defines altars as a container for all things meaningful and authentic. Holding steadfast to every human’s experience in life – from first breath to exploration, to love to death. Her dream is to normalize altars in more spaces, giving everyone access to a spiritual practice of expression and remembrance beyond religious confines. Her use of flowers (and more flowers) is her  signature.

She has created altars for Acción Latina, BAAITS, Camepsina Womb Justice, Chinese Cultural Center, Exploratorium, KQED, La Doña, National AIDS Memorial, San Francisco Opera amongst many others. Danielle was the RAÍCES Fellow from for the Marigold Project creating 32 public altar installations during her tenure.

Small case

Eyes Open, Heart Safe
Recycled cardboard, 1,400 evil eye, and milagro charms
Dimensions variable
2025

Big case

Eyes Open, Heart Safe
Recycled cardboard, 1,500 silk flowers, and 107 yards of silk ribbon
Dimensions variable
2025

The Ramp Gallery is an artist-driven exhibition space at SOMArts that is currently accepting applications for four-week long solo and group shows. An opportunity for entrepreneurial artists to ramp up their careers by exhibiting at one of San Francisco’s most dynamic hubs for art and community, the high-visibility location of The Ramp Gallery is adjacent to the main entrance of SOMArts and open to all local artists in the Bay Area. To learn more about the space please visit, The Ramp Gallery.