About Danny

Danny Gordo is a figurative painter, tattoo artist, musician, and founder of The Copper Wolf Tattoo Studio and Art Gallery based in Tumwater, WA. He holds a BFA in Illustration from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and is the 2025 Robert B. McMillen Foundation MAC Award winner. Using oil and graphite, Danny blends classical techniques with contemporary symbolism to craft visually intricate and emotionally resonant images that invoke contemplation and reflection in viewers. 

Beyond his studio practice, Danny is an active teacher and mentor. He works primarily with young artists in the South Puget Sound region, helping them develop both their technical skills and creative perspective. His work has been exhibited across the country and internationally, and reflects an ongoing commitment to inquiry, emotional clarity, and the belief that art can act as a catalyst for personal and collective transformation.

Portrait of Danny Gordo

The Oracles Collection - 2025

Oracles is a body of work in which I’m trying to understand how systems of power shape identity, and what it means to take some of that back. It sits in that tension between what’s been cut away and what’s still there underneath.

The work comes from my own experience, but it’s for anyone who’s been shaped by expectations or changed by systems that were supposed to care for them. I want to shine a light on these ideas and infuse them with the hope that, given enough reflection, we might find what was once lost.

What I want is for the paintings to slow people down and give them space to see something of themselves in the work. If that happens, even briefly, then it’s doing what it’s supposed to.