Vilma Gold is proud to present William Daniels’ fourth solo exhibition at the gallery.
It is possible to read William Daniels’ paintings as an exercise in trompe l’oeil. However, focusing solely on this characteristic limits the discussion of his work to the idea of the simulacrum – an image without substance or qualities of the original. By instead turning attention towards the ritualistic and repetitious forms that occur throughout his recent baroque and kaleidoscopic paintings, Daniels’ work is revealed as more romantic and more complex. The painting’s surfaces are formed by complex interwoven marks of radiant colour that describe archetypal forms, which embody the fundamental characteristics of a ‘thing’. Objects speak to objects in these compositions, suggesting one foot in a mythic past but also one in our current digital age. The everyday materials used to make the maquettes he paints from are always animated to suggest something wider than the sum of their parts, transforming humble materials into powerful images that contain deeply imbedded cultural meaning. - Alex Pollard
William Daniels (born in Brighton in 1976) lives and works in London. Daniels’ has had solo exhibitions at Luhring Augustine, New York (2013 and 2009) Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2011), and at Vilma Gold, London in 2010, 2007 and 2005. His work has been included in many group exhibitions, notably; I Cheer A Dead Man’s Sweetheart, De la Warr Pavillion, Bexhill on Sea (2014), LA Figurazione Inevitable curated by Marco Bazzini and Davide Ferri, Centro per l’arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2013), Pale Ontology, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2012) The Piano Lesson, Vilma Gold, London (2012) Testing Ground |Time Scale, 176 Zabludowicz Collection, London (2011) Durchsichtige Dinge (Transparent Things) Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg (2011), Big Minis, CAPC, Bordeaux (2010) Newspeak: British Art Now, touring: Saatchi Gallery, London (2010) The State Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg (2009), Mimesi Permanente - An Exhibition on Realism and Stimulation, GAM, Turin (2010), Dreaming the Mainstream, Vilma Gold, London (2009), Jean-Luc Blanc, Opera Rock, curated by Alexis Valliant, CAPC, Bordeaux (2008), Legend, Domaine Departemental de Chamarande, Chamarande, France (2008), Painted Objects, Harris Lieberman, New York (2007), At Home at the Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York (2007) Size Matters, Hudson Centre for Contemporary Art, New York (2007).