Studio Sale 2023 | Chris Daniels

Daniels creates abstract paintings concerned with colour and form. These are the two integral components of his practice which generate the content of the painting. He tends to work in series, with the forms fixing the template for the colour to be the differential. The paintings are produced using masking tape to control the painting gesture, resulting in hard-edged geometric forms. This clean, reductive technique sets up the structure, which allows Daniels to continually search for new combinations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the chromatic decisions.

Colour combinations are chosen by instinct and experience over adherence to traditional colour principles. This approach echoes Albers, who was interested in the interaction of line and colour over theory. There isn’t a wrong colour, it’s a question of finding the right relationships. These stimuli can come from the wider world such as advertising and design, and often echoing previous paintings. He is drawn to colours which cause a vibration, tension or reaction when placed together. It is not about an individual colour, but the selected combination working as one. Colours are not static; they have relational value depending on how they are placed together, and the work seeks to exploit and manipulate this visual experience. 

A recent development since 2020 had been using linen primed with a clear sealer. The weave acts a background colour, holding a middle ground, and has increased the brightness of the paint, the intensity of the colour is now generated by the pigments reacting to the darker background of the linen, resulting in the spectrum of colours shifting. 

Chris Daniels, b. 1981, is an artist who graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2008, and Loughborough University in 2004. He has work in private collections worldwide.

www.chrisdanielsart.com
IG @chris_daniels_art