Daniel o’toole

b. 1984

Lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia

Building on the Los Angeles 'Light and Space' movement of the 1960’s, Daniel’s work is positioned in the post-digital context of contemporary Australia. Working across the mediums of painting, video, sound and installation, he blurs the lines between disciplines—always looking for an outcome which unites the various aspects of his practice in a cohesive way. 

Daniel’s work embraces imperfection and low-resolution modes of recording as an aesthetic decision. Self-recorded videos of natural phenomena serve as references for his paintings. These time-based works are a conflation of analogue and digital processes. Kinetic distortion, the movement of shadows, the refraction of light—these nuanced micro-events, each which can be, and so often is, easily missed in everyday life, form the focus of his art.

Inspired by his personal experiences with synesthesia, Daniel seeks to deliver a connected dialogue between different sensory modes of communication; primarily between color and sound. Various light altering materials are used to affect visual perception and re-animate the static image. Questioning the ubiquity of the digital screen, his work emphasizes 'seeing' as an active engagement rather than a passive receiving.

In a culture immersed in a digital dialogue, the value of images is in quick decline. The time for consideration is being eroded by an insatiable appetite for endorphins. The refraction effect that is explored in Daniel’s painting and sculpture is intended to draw attention to the time it takes for light to enter and return from the space within the frame.

Deliberately slowing down the viewing pace, it is an invitation to physically interact with distilled natural phenomena.