William Daniels is best known for meticulous trompe l’oeil works that depict famous art historical paintings. He constructs models of the source paintings out of materials such as paper, cardboard, or aluminum foil which are photographed, and then recreated as painstakingly detailed facsimiles in oil paint. Recognizable, but pared down and muted in tone, the resulting small-scale paintings are at once a still-life and a faithful rendering of the original artwork. Both his process and his paintings explore issues of representation, documentation, authenticity, and value. In his most recent body of work, Daniels eschews source imagery and creates aluminum foil dioramas which are entirely abstract. Each model is lit differently to achieve variations in palette and the resulting paintings are complex compositions of brilliant color and pure form.
