A Faint Earthly Breath by Melanie Daniel (CA)
18 MARCH – 23 APRIL 2022, MAIN GALLERY
Galleri Christoffer Egelund is proud to present the first solo show by Canadian painter Melanie Daniel – A FAINT EARTHLY BREATH – in the Main Gallery. At the same time, this is the beginning of our representation of the artist and we are super excited with the collaboration.
In her newest series, the artist is still delving into her idiosyncratic vision of our complicated relationship with the natural world. In recent years, Daniel has taken on the daunting subject of global climate change in a strangely oblique and highly imaginative manner. She creates futuristic narratives in which human beings struggle to reclaim their lives in the aftermath of environmental disaster or in the midst of a pandemic.
Daniel’s landscapes take on a dreamlike quality in which the figures quietly lose themselves in mutated forests or gardens. Born in British Columbia, Canada, Daniel is known for her hybrid landscapes, inspired by her own itinerant lifestyle, and by the physical progressions of modern society. She lives in Canada and Israel, and after several years in the US, with the pandemic brewing, Daniel found herself in a holding pattern of not knowing which border she could cross. The alternating absurdity and confusion associated with the pandemic, climate change, and our sense of descent into a point of no return are all alluded to by digital symbols, including already nostalgic video game icons, pixelated dinosaurs, skulls, or a “Game Over”.
A FAINT EARTHLY BREATH is a collection of oil on canvas paintings that become a mute signal to slow down, to acknowledge the fine balance between the contemporary urban experience and the natural world. All the elements that have circulated in Daniel’s oeuvre are present– a lone figure in a vast yet manic forest, vividly erupting marks, demarcations, and micro-moments that shift from then to the now with pixelated icons and graffiti. A painting is started by pouring thin stains and washes from previously used pigments and mixes from her preceding paintings. In this way, one painting grows out of the other. Daniel’s signature mark-making uses gravity to place color and form onto the canvas which she then builds upon with line and brushwork. Figures and forests morph together in fantastical, timeless spaces that feel both personal and universal.
Melanie Daniel (b. 1972) lives and works in British Columbia, Canada. Having spent many years living and creating in Jaffa, Israel, she is inspired by the multi-cultural environment of her surroundings. After the education in Canada, she completed a BFA in Fine Arts Department from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem; followed by MFA from Bezalel, Tel Aviv / Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Daniel has had numerous exhibitions internationally, including solo exhibitions at Asya Geisberg Gallery, NY, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, Angelika Knapper Gallery, Stockholm, Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv, Ashdod Museum of Art, Israel, Shulamit Gallery, Los Angeles, Kelowna Art Gallery, BC, among others. Her work is included in collections such as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Harvard Business School, and the Ashdod Museum of Art. Daniel is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, the 2009 Rappaport Prize for a Young Israeli Painter, a Creative Capital Grant, and the NARS Foundation Residency in New York City. She recently completed a position as the Padnos Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Grand Valley State University, MI.
The opening of the exhibition takes place on Friday, 18th March from 16 to 19. The exhibition runs until 23rd April.
Opening hours: Wednesday-Friday 15-18, Saturday 12-16. For further information and sales requests, please contact the gallery at: hello@christofferegelund.dk or at +45 33 93 92 00. Visit us at Bredgade 75, DK-1260 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Image: Melanie Daniel, "Things Unseen", 2022, Oil on canvas, 100x130 cm.