Natalie Daise’s voice and face are familiar to many who grew up in the 1990s. She and her husband, Ron Daise, starred in Nickelodeon's “Gullah Gullah Island,” a television show that ran from 1994–1998 and became one of the most popular shows for children during the era. After the show, the Daise family returned to life in the South Carolina Lowcountry, and Natalie began exploring storytelling through brushes, paint, surface, and craft. Images of strong women began to emerge, images of African symbols, pain and praise, family, and the sacred in the everyday. She earned her master’s in creative studies from Union Institute and University in 2014, Daise is an artist, an explorer of material, a storyteller, a singer and an actor, and a lover of community. 

Daise loves collard greens and brown faces. They are her heritage and her history. The collard green has become an iconic symbol incorporated in many of her paintings. Daise observed in an interview for The Bitter Southerner, When I think of collard greens, I think of my father and the greens were family, and the greens were community, and they were like every Black Southern family I knew who was having a gathering. And I began to think how daddy grew them, and he cooked them and my mama cooked them. And now I cook them.

She captures the beauty and sacredness of the spirit of Blackness that shines through her subject’s eyes.

Daise’s commitment to community is evident in her most recent project, “When I See Myself, I See…” portraits of twenty-one middle schoolers. Daise interviewed students at South Carolina middle schools to learn about their hopes, dreams, aspirations and fears. The resulting portraits capture their stories and create a dialogue around the challenges and opportunities facing youth today. These students trusted me with their stories and dreams. Creating their portraits felt like an act of worship. They are brave, brilliant, and beautiful—each a work of art. In a hard season of my life, they gave me hope. I’m honored to have met them, said Daise. In addition to the portraits, the exhibition features student interviews exploring topics such as family history, mental health, education and peer pressure. 

SCGA director, Karen Watson states, as a longtime admirer of Natalie Daise’s art, The Sumter County Gallery of Art is honored to present Natalie’s paintings and her performance in our gallery.

SCGA curator and assistant director Eric Lachance notes, Along with her husband, Ron, Natalie Daise's artistry was most known to six-year-old-me as the stars of Nickelodeon's Gullah Gullah Island. Natalie uses paint and canvas these days to depict the faces, figures, and events from her own life, pop-culture, history and journalism to reiterate and create space for important stories, using imagery as layered as her brushstrokes.