Daniel Preece - Featured Artist

Daniel Preece has always made work about the landscape, focusing mainly upon the urban environment. Born in London in 1970 he was initially drawn to the gasometers and tower blocks that populated the area he grew up in around southwest London, trying to express and record these monumental forms in space.

After graduating from the Slade in 1993, he worked for the artist Bruce McLean and then travelled extensively living and making work abroad. This included a year in the USA with a Boise Scholarship and six months in Paris completing a number of commissions.

After his time living in New York and Paris, Daniel´s approach to his urban surrounds has been on a grander scale, making large panoramic paintings from high vantage points. This preoccupation started whilst undertaking a commission for The Canary Wharf Group, during which he considered how these relatively new monuments to the city were beginning to dominate and transform the London skyline. Daniel continued to record this transforming cityscape from different points; South, East and in the City, and to consider how from each viewpoint the buildings interact with the surrounding skyline.

Canary Wharf by Night

Paris

Daniel used drawing, painting and photography to document his travels. This helped him explore his surroundings; reflect on his experiences, while considering his emotional response to his new environment. Travelling also gave him the opportunity to reflect on the ‘English Tradition’ that influences his work. Now living in London and with the experience of travel he has returned to the city he grew up in for subject matter, constructing expansive panoramic paintings from high viewpoints.

Drawing plays a strong part in the making of his work. If possible, Daniel will produce drawings from observation recording information specifically to help him inform the painting. This process also gives him the opportunity to reflect on his emotional response to the subject, which in turn dictates the development and style of the work.

Gasometer

New York from the 265 Building

Daniel will also record the view with a camera, reconstructing a panorama of photographs, to refer to when making the painting. He is not interested in making a copy of the photograph but uses it as an aid to help build colour and light in the paintings.

Recently Daniel has become interested in using the colour values created in photographs taken in low light, without the aid of a flash. This becomes a starting point to help him develop his own use of colour within the painting. Ultimately it may not relate to things seen but be used more as a formal device within the work. It is important that the painting becomes a believable reality where the viewer understands the forms and space being created within the picture. These paintings could be perceived as topographical, but the use of ‘expressive’ colour, can sometimes be interpreted as more personal response to the subject matter.

Peckham High Street

Blue Mountain - Wales

 

Running alongside this project, Daniel is also returning to the ideas and images collected during his Boise Scholarship to the USA. It gives him the opportunity to reflect with greater understanding on his time in the States, inventing a new personal narrative. This has also helped him with his new approach to the new paintings he is making about London.

 Panaroma 

Daniel has exhibited at Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, Mayfair; Art Futures with Contemporary Art Society (including a review in the Independent on Sunday) and the Jeffrey Charles Gallery, Whitechapel, amongst many other galleries.

Recent commissions have been for the Topland Group and Bayer PLC. He recently had a successful solo exhibition at the Gillions Art Gallery in Battersea, London.  Last year Daniel also taught at the prestigious Princes Drawing School.

For further information on Daniel Preece visit www.danielpreece.co.uk/