© Daniel Gordon | Sicilian Still Life
The Unreal Paper Apple
Daniel Gordon
Vividly coloured tableaux show well-known still-life objects.
Words by
Artdoc
How do you bring new perspectives and vigour to the classic genre of still-life? New York Artist, Daniel Gordon, has the answer. His vividly coloured elaborate tableaux show well-known still-life objects like sculls, vases, shells, flowers, plants, apples, pears, and, yes, blue bananas against backdrops with contrasting colours. His works are real because he creates and photographs the objects themselves. But they are also surreal because the objects are printed internet images—the apple, for instance, is a paper apple. Daniel Gordon was awarded the Paul Huff Award in 2014 by the Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam. Maybe a coincidence, but still-life was a 17th-century Dutch invention.
Daniel Gordon has a very distinctive way of creating his works. First, he cuts out printed papers with images from the internet, creating three-dimensional objects from the prints. Subsequently, he creates theatrical settings with various cut-out objects. Finally, he documents his paper artworks with flat, shadowless light in his studio with a big camera, initially an 8x10 inch analogue camera, and recently, a digital medium format Fuji. Recently, he has also been creating three-dimensional objects like a Greek-style vase from paper. These sculptures are not intended to be photographed. “I am working on a show in New York that will include three-dimensional works for the first time.”
The advancement of technology enabled him to approach his work in a more advanced way. When printing with inkjet printers became easier, Gordon started to change colours in Photoshop and print bigger objects for his tableaux. “Initially, I thought altering anything in Photoshop was very taboo. Something shifted in my mind, and I concluded it would be more interesting if I showed I was using this tool. So I overtly altered colour and added pixelation, noise, and a range of other interventions. This narration is a long-winded way to say technology has led me in new directions, which I would never have thought possible.”
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Transformation
It wasn’t a conscious decision to use the generally less provocative genre of still-life. Daniel Gordon was naturally drawn to it because he aspired to freeze time. He recounts his first endeavour in his past works. “When I was an undergraduate student, I worked on a project called Flying Pictures, in which I would set the camera up on a tripod and find the location on the landscape where the sky met the land. Then I would go out onto the horizon line, run full speed, take off, and fly for 1/250th of a second.” In this project, Gordon made time stand still while creating a photographic illusion of himself flying. With the concept of transformation, he constructed pictures by building sculptural sets with photographs. “I wanted to construct images using photographs as the building blocks. The question early on was, could I construct and photograph them in a way that transformed them from photographs to the real thing? This transformation was at the crux of both the flying pictures and these early constructed pictures. Photographic technologies, such as inkjet printing and Photoshop, changed this goal of verisimilitude within my constructed pictures into one more open to painting and sculpture.” Gordon started using still-life constructions in his photo works, involuntarily referring to classic still-life paintings. He is down to earth about his choices. “I can play within the still-life format, a trope, a known genre that people understand. At the end of the day, I am making straight photographs. In other words, the information in front of the lens that is captured is not altered. It is the construction itself that contains intervention. I've always been attracted to the conflict of making work that is not defined easily as one medium. I think it’s interesting for an image to sit between photography, painting, sculpture, and collage.”
At the end of the day, I am making straight photographs.
Since its birth, photography has been the medium of reality, but now artists like Daniel Gordon have challenged this reality. He swaps reality for construction and transformation but reveals that formal aspects also play a vital role. “Transformation has always been an underlying element in all my work. But I am also deeply interested in formal ideas of colour and form. I try to make well-known objects look like new things.”
Even though his work has a distinctive conceptual look, Daniel Gordon does not see himself as a conceptual photographer. His brief answer is, “I think of myself as an artist.”
Colours and shadows
The artist uses vivid, saturated colours that emerge from the brightly illuminated scenes. For example, in the artwork Poppies (2021), we see yellow and orange flowers against a bright blue backdrop with yellow figures. Do the colours represent certain emotions or appeal to our overall attraction to colours generally? “I can't say I assign emotions to particular colours, but the combination of colours can be evocative and create a feeling.”
I took a photograph of the shadow in the background, printed it, and pasted it in the background to look like a shadow.
Gordon's photo works partly obtain their charm and oddity from a puzzling combination of the tableaux's depth and the flatness of his studio lights. Sometimes there are shadows, but they prove to be fake. “Ten years ago, I used a continuous tungsten light, and the shadows were a major part of my compositions. When they stopped making the tungsten film, I took a photograph of the shadow in the background, printed it, and pasted it in the background to look like a shadow. From there, I stopped trying to mimic and allowed the shadows to move into a painterly space. This process, to me, is a great example of the pain of changing technologies and forcing a change that ultimately advances the work.”
Cubism and surrealism
The vases, plants, apples, pears, and bananas seem to be placed in surreal positions, giving the still-lives a cubistic outlook. Influences from Picasso, Cezanne, and other related artists linger in the background. Gordon acknowledges the influence of the cubistic period and says the camera is the cubistic apparatus in itself. “You could argue that cubism would never have existed without the camera. With those shadows, with the multiple perspectives of objects, with flattening of space and expanding space, with playing with the foreground and the background, I want to encapsulate multiple perspectives simultaneously. It's the opposite of what the camera initially did.”
I want to encapsulate multiple perspectives simultaneously.
The cubistic perspectives contribute to an overall surreal atmosphere, despite the even, light and vivid colours. The apple is not a genuine apple; it is a paper apple. “I often looked at Man Ray’s photographs when I was young. I was naturally drawn to them as a young student. About five years ago, I did a project based on small black and white Man Ray portfolios. I did a project with Onestar Press in France and collaborated with a friend, Khalil Huffman, who wrote a book of poems connected to the photographs documenting the in-between state of my studio between pictures. Surrealism wasn't a conscious decision, but it's a genuine interest. There's a moment of confusion, of trying to understand what's real and fake. I hope this will bring the viewer to spend time with the image.”
Hidden humour
Even a serious art lover cannot deny a fair amount of humour in the work of Daniel Gordon. Looking at his sometimes-weird tableaux provokes a subtle smile and an inner giggle. But as with good art, the artist does not deliberately bring the humour in. “I would say it's a natural state. It's the kind of thing I'm not trying to do, per se, but I acknowledge that humour is there. And in many of the artists I like, there's humour in their work. For the sculptor Claes Oldenburg, for example, it's something about seeing the goofiness and humanity, which brings a certain joy.”
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