ABOUT

Daniel’s work draws on the timelessness of the shoreline and the corrosion of the objects he finds there, both natural and manmade. He spends long hours alone at the water’s edge, scouring the rocks for splinters of the past washed up by the tide. He harvests these fragments to find the shapes that he pieces together into figures - human, animal and otherworldly - spending days or weeks rearranging the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, letting the correct form appear.  

 

His inspirations are many and varied; the anatomy of extremes, the insects he kept as a child, the disturbing and distorted realism of artists like Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti. The result is a body of work that captures the visceral nature of corrosion and decay.

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The materials he uses in his sculpture change over time; "I’ve always looked out for anything that seemed useful, anything that could be part of a figure. I used to mostly look for metal - I really love the erosion of metal, the patination it creates. But more recently, I’ve been seeking out more natural items, like crab claws and bones."

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His photography creates strange and contorted spaces conjured up from the microscopic worlds of rust and decay. Fantastical views, fashioned by the corruption and deterioration caused by pollution, the elements and the passage of many years. 

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This effect of time; how it weighs down on all things, pulling, squeezing and wrenching them into new and alarming forms is a presence in all of Daniel’s work. The figures and landscapes he summons up have been gnawed at and ground away by the weight of years as much as by the sea and wind.