Interview with contemporary artist Daniel Milton.

51, mixed media

When I came across the art of Daniel Milton I got fascinated by the way he combines digital and traditional media creating vibrant pictures of contemporary urban lifestyle. It's even hard to distinguish the multiplicity of means, photography from painting, reality from fiction. The variety of elements and saturation he uses compose counterfactual sharp images where photorealism meets post modernism.

I would like to thank Daniel for the short interview and the images.

Tell us a bit about you.

I was born in 1974 in Sweden . Grew up on the countryside but could not wait to move. When I was about 20 I started to travel and lived a couple of years in other countries such as Britain and Spain.

I have always been drawing and painting, I was that kid in the classroom with more drawings than numbers in my math book.

I started to paint “for real” in 2000 when I lived in the Sweden ’s second largest city – Gothenburg. I had my first exhibitions there and I wanted more. After a few years of painting and going to different courses and classes in graphic design I decided it was time for art school.

After three years in two different art schools I ended up in Stockholm 2004. To pay the rent I started to work in a cinema part time and I hated it. But I had to pay the rent and thought I had no choice and stayed there for almost two years. But then I decided that I had to give the art a serious try, so I quit the cinema, got a studio and started to paint full time. My best decision ever!

Since then I work with my art every day and this is the life I want to live. I have a couple of galleries behind me in Sweden and Finland and the last year I’ve had quite a lot of attention from people all over the world, local media and galleries. And from other artists – which means a lot to me! This doesn’t mean I’m rich, but I don’t need a regular day job to survive and that’s the most important thing.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

A big inspiration for me is the traces of humans in urban environments. The colours and patterns on a wall after hundreds of posters and stickers have been torn away. Or graffiti tags on an old door. Things that other people may not notice at all is great art to me.

I travel quite a lot and take thousands of photos every year which I later use in my art. I love to experience different cultures and discover new things. Japan is my favorite country and a big inspiration for me – fantastic people, great art and a very different look at the world and how to create and present things.

Is there a movement or specific artists that have influence in your art?

When I was growing up Picasso was my biggest inspiration. I used to read all the books about him and tried to copy his style, especially cubism.

Later I discovered Francis Bacon, Basquiat and more “thrashy” artists and I felt at home.

Nowadays my biggest inspiration is all the artists you can find on Internet, especially the ones on MySpace. There are so many artists I admire, but I won’t mention any names here. Take a look at my artist friends on MySpace instead.

How do you know when an artwork is finished?

I just know. Sometimes when I think an artwork is finished before it is I get an itchy feeling that won’t leave me until I pick it up and finish it “for real”. The canvas is simply telling me when to continue and when to stop. This doesn’t mean it’s easy in any way, it can be a very long process before my works start to “talk back” to me. But if you just stick to it and don’t quit you will get rewarded in the end.

Tell as about your latest series.

My latest series of work is a combination of big digital prints and acrylic paint. The mix of digital collages and analog technique is a way to create contrasts and to confuse. There is a fine line where the photo ends and the painting begins. What is what? I love when people stand in front of my artworks for a long time and try to figure out what they are looking at.

I also want to show my view on a contemporary world where everything is speeding, mixed up and nothing can be taken for granted. In my eyes a corrupt world that is falling apart and fading away. But the hope is always there. I also use a lot of humour in my artworks, to create boring things is not for me. I think the best way to say something serious is to say it in a funny way or at least a different way. Boring art is the worst.

Of all the thousands of photos I take every year I pick the best ones for my artworks. The work to choose and put them together is a long and time consuming process and I spend months at my computer when working on a new series before I even can start to paint. This makes me very dependent of my computer and other people, but I don’t have any choice. This is my way to work and it is perfect to me because I love to take photos and I love to paint. To combine the two of them is - if you ask me - genius.

After the take over and so on, mixed media

EDUCATION
2004 - 2005 Art school of Oland (third year), Sweden
2003 - 2004 Art school of Oland (second year), Sweden
2002 - 2003 Basic art education, Art School of Blekinge, Sweden
2000 - 2002 Various courses in graphic design, Sweden


EXHIBITIONS
2008 Helsinki Art fair, Finland
2008 Gallery Utstallningssalongen, Stockholm
2008 Gallery Kocks, Stockholm
2007 Gallery Uusitalo, Finland (group)
2007 Gallery Kocks, Stockholm
2006 Street ArtSpace, Stockholm
2006 Gallery Kocks, Stockholm
2006 Kulturhuset, Stockholm (group)
2004 Kalmar konstmuseum, Kalmar (group)
2004 Konstnatten, Oland
2003 Gallery Ljuspunkten, Nora
2003 Massmanska kvarnen, Ronneby (group)
2000 Gallery Lagerwall Lagerwall, Göteborg

UPCOMING
2009 Nybro Konsthall, Sweden (January 24 – February 8)

2009 Gallery Uusitalo, Finland (August 5-30)

www.miltonart.se

www.myspace.com/miltonarty

moment, mixed media

Sclater st.- London

TRANSVEST by Yuki Onodera

"Alice"






Yuki Onodera (born in Tokyo, lives and works between Paris and Tokyo) Onodera’s black and white photographs explore themes of absence, anonymity and the equivocal - second-hand clothes fight gravity without any ownership, a pinhole camera captures ghost-like outlines of suburban houses, men and women dress in each other’s clothes.

"Sophie and Eva"





"The series title transvest is a decoy, ironically shifting our attention to the clothes and whether they cover a male or female body. Rather than costume or covering , Onodera inscribes the surface of darkness with something that comes from deep within. We drop several orders of magnitude, from the mere outline of an individual to collected memories or total consciousness. Maybe it is the soul, or the history of our thoughts, or a vast cosmic awareness - but the poses of these actors quickly lose their relevance when we recognize the magical hieroglyphics they harbor. The artist draws us close through clever tableaux, then she opens the doors of perception to a reality greater than can be contained within a single being or even a troupe, inspiring a sense of wonder about the hidden territories embedded within these figures - and within us all."
Dana Friis-Hansen















"Andy, Frank and Pierre"

Contemporary Chinese Art

Life- sized sculptures of wizened pensioners resembling aged world leaders sit in wheelchairs whizzing around, clattering into each otherin a mock skirmish. Old Person's Home, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, 2007.


It was hard to believe a couple of decades ago that Contemporary Chinese art would one day
become one of the auction world's biggest earners or that would be one of the darkest and disturbing art ever been seen.
When in 2001 the art critic Waldemar Januszczak filmed his documentary Beijing Swings about an exhibition of shocking art opened in Shangai the authorities who pretended that this kind of art did not exist and were obsessed with preparations for the Olympics at the time and how they would come across to the world, reacted intensely.
The filmmaker and crew are to this day banned from going to China and the artists appeared in the film were harassed and refused visas.
Thirty years of market- led economic growth have produced two apparently conflicting sides to 21- century China.On the one hand is the top- down rule of the Communist party in Beijing and on the other the numerous sectors of life which go on with little effective control. As a result, this dichotomy has a particular application to the world of art.
In 1942, Mao decreed that "all culture, all literature and art belong to definite political lines. There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake".
Art was for the masses, controlled by the Communist Party to ensure its ends were served.
Between 1966 and 1976 the Cultural Revolution and the use of propaganda reached its zenith as vast posters depicted the wonders achieved as a result of the teachings in the Chairman's little Red Book. Conservatives in the leadership saw artistic freedom as "spiritual pollution" and even today the regime puts the exercise of control above all else. It censors cinema, books, the media and the internet. Still, some observes wonder if the rejection of cultural conservatism by some of the country's leading artists may not foster a different kind of freedom outside official channels. Just as the economy shows signs of evolving beyond central control, so art may take on a life of its own.

Long Live Chairman Mao SeriesNo.29, Zhang Hongtu, 1989.

Chinese Offspring, Zhang Dali, 2003- 2005.

Communication (series No.2), Cang Xin, 1999.

Contemporary Chinese Art at The Saatchi gallery- London

Books