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| Delusional Encapsulation, Graphite on Paper, 22 x 30", 2014, Daniel Zeller [Source] |
Incredibly, implausibly, the above image is not a photograph. It is not a computer augmented satellite aerial image or the output of a scanning electron microscope across a varied surface. It is simply the work of one man working with pencil and paper, working steadily away, without so much as a concrete plan of what he is creating. It is the work of Daniel Zeller.
Zeller's artwork borrows heavily from the visual imagery provided by modern technology. He notes as his inspirations satellite imagery and the view through microscopes: the view far removed from the action. His interest lies in imagery that belongs to a three-dimensional surface but has been two-dimensionalised, hence its topographic quality. He intuitively assimilates his influences rather than following any prescribed procedure and approaches his work without a strict plan of what he will do. Often he will start with some sort of reference image and alternate with where he follows it and where he treats it as abstraction. Other times he will simply start to start to draw and engage in a conversation with the composition, seeing where it needs to be tweaked and tugged. As one might imagine this is a slow process.
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| Domain Inference, Ink & Acrylic on Paper, 23 x 18", 2012, Daniel Zeller [Source] |
For me, the diagrammatic and implicit informational structure of the work is a large part of its appeal. It looks like data, like a representation of something, perhaps abstract, as a topology. The intricacy of the work, the delicacy of the lines, the careful way in which the compositions have been made to yield to aesthetic considerations and the analogue nature of the works form the other part of the appeal.
In stripping what appears to be data from any informational context, Zeller reveals the artistry of this imagery.
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| I5/22/57 Interchange with Hydra, Ink and Acrylic on Paper, 30 x 37", 2013, Daniel Zeller [Source] |
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| Source Remnant, Ink on Paper, 13.5 x 11", 2015, Daniel Zeller [Source] |
There's an otherwordly quality to his work and a question of scale: are we looking at something extremely small or extremely large? His work incorporates repetition and reproduction at varying scale to imbue the images with rhythm and relation. It seems to be simultaneously fluid and organic and yet seemingly underpinned by a rigid mathematical structure, in short it seems natural.
