artist/ CASTAN

FRANCE

Born in 1959 in the Dordogne, Daniel has been drawing since a very young age and sharpens his brushstroke at the Beaux Arts de Bordeaux.
Once he graduated, he worked as a graphic designer, created his company and carried out work for Unicef, Pierre Balmain, Zippo, Polyflamme or the UN…
At 40, he questions his choices that distance him from creation. At 48, he gives up everything to live his dream… From his meeting with the painter Pierre Doutreleau was born the desire to become an artist and live his dream. During his first professional life, Daniel traveled extensively in New York and Hong Kong. From these displacements he retains a fascination for urban universes and disproportionate perspectives. He tries in his paintings to recreate these graphic atmospheres. The lines of the buildings are lost in the sky, the wide avenues seem endless, the colors clash.

Initially, Daniel works from pictures he takes himself. Then canvas after canvas, impregnated with images of Brooklyn, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, he ends up making more personal views of New York out of his imagination. Today only the work on light counts, the perspective obscuring all superfluous details.
Daniel chooses to paint with alkyd oil. It works like conventional oil but its binder allows accelerated drying like its temperament. Once the canvas is finished, he applies thick layers of glossy varnish to support the brightness of his subject. The knife, his favorite tool, allows him to work both in paste, in large touch and to draw in the material. The choice of this instrument is not a coincidence, the knife leaves no room for doubt. Daniel is impatient and is guided by the gesture.
In a few minutes the canvas is covered with paint, he then adds material and chisells it like a sculptor. The canvas comes to life quickly. Painter of instinct,
Daniel lets painting lead him to an abstract and refined representation. His approach is not premeditated, Daniel does not think, he paints.