Watch our new animated film of Harvey Daniels' work or read below for a brief feature on the artist's philosophy.
Harvey Daniels is, above all, an artist of joy. His intensely bright, dynamic, musical arrangements of geometric shapes and shades revel in the balance of opposites: light and dark; harmony and dissonance; chaos and calm.
Play Me (gouache)
Born in London in 1936, Daniels began his artistic career as a painter of people and still lifes inspired by the British artist Walter Sickert before discovering the cut-out collages of Matisse. A student of the Slade in the mid-1950s, he applied his intuitive understanding of graphic media to become the Principal Lecturer on printmaking at Brighton College of Art for nineteen years, eventually leaving to teach elsewhere throughout the UK, Norway, Greece, Australia and the US as a visiting professor.
Celebrate (screen print)
With works held in major public and private collections across the world, Daniels’ reputation has grown exponentially in recent years. His vibrant paintings, be they in acrylic, gouache, or sonorous watercolour, juxtapose dancing forms and colours with a merry abandon that recalls the choreography of Delaunay’s Orphism, Miró’s unpredictable Abstract Surrealism, and the rhythmic arrangement of Klee and Kandinsky.
Magic (left) and Sweet (right), both watercolour
From every luminescent yellow to their midnight blues, Daniels' paintings reaffirm the strength of optimistic art in a cynical world frequently devoid of colour and mirth. My work is primarily celebratory, he has stated: a fact itself worth celebrating.
(below) Tree (left) and Lambs (untitled, right), both acrylic
