“You could say it’s about life and death, politics and religion, love, faith, hope, war and science… it’s open. The work is more about life than it is about the sinister and subversive.”- Dan Baldwin
Dan Baldwin’s work attempts to portray the fine line between the sinister and the beautiful. Through his dynamic prints, paintings and ceramics, the artist reveals the curious corners of his vivid imagination, where innocence and fantasy clash with darkened realities. The result: artworks that burst with juxtapositions, symbolism, questions and curiosities. Often layering his work further with collage, glazes and diamond dust, he creates pieces that are rich in both substance and sentiment. Symbolism in particular is key to the artist’s oeuvre; the motifs he plays with are repeated like reoccurring dreams. Crucifixes and cartoons, spiders, skeletons, and swallows, flowers and firearms are spun together in spiderwebs of uncomfortable but captivating compositions. Bursting with juxtapositions and contradictions - love/hate, innocence/corruption, beauty/decay, science/religion - the works are not simply about playing with opposites but about reconciliation, life, and allowing us to join their creator in his preoccupation with the 'big questions' of human existence.