Born in Leeds
(1968) Daniel Paulo lived for 28 years at Sutton-in-Craven
eventually moving in 2001 to Burnley.
Whilst always
interested in being creative - an early ambition (which
persists to this day) was to be a filmmaker. It was only
after seeing the film "Lust for Life", a
biography of Vincent Van Gogh, when aged 19, that he
suddenly realised how he could channel his creative
impulses. Within 2 years he had completed a Foundation in
Art and Design at Jacob Kramer College, Leeds and had
begun a degree in Fine Art at Farnham in Surrey.
To work from
the northern landscape was a priority from very early on,
but attending college in the south of England led to a
protracted struggle in finding how to do that while that
very landscape was 250 miles away. The end result was
that Paulo learnt how to work from memory and this became
his preferred approach.
After
graduating in 1993 large works in oil and smaller ones in
water based media were developed, these were regularly
exhibited across the north and London. In 1995 with
fellow artist Peter Marsden, Paulo formed Aire Valley
Arts, a group of locally based artists pooling resources
to generate funding and exhibition opportunities. Two
major series of works "The Head" and "Re-Awakenings
- paintings of Undercliffe Cemetery" resulted from
collaborations with AVA. Paulo was secretary of the group
for over 3 years.
Late in 1997
a breakthrough was achieved with the "Amid Greenness"
works, which saw a conscious effort to make a more
ambitious statement. The work became larger, more
abstract, the horizon line was lost so the image became a
close-up of the landscape, a fragment; and a figurative
presence was vaguely suggested in sinuous forms vying
amongst vertical structures.
A year on and
a need was felt to return to the shape and colour of the
landscape. "The Ingleborough Series" was the
result, a major series of paintings each depicting the
experience of one day every month throughout 1999 of
being on and around Yorkshire's second highest peak. This
work has toured throughout 2001-2 and is the artist's
most ambitious and fully realised project to date.
Current work
sees another change, using the human figure as the source.
These paintings often move towards complete abstraction
but the need to represent the experience of an individual
immersed in nature remains consistent with the work of
the last 10 years. Larger paintings are being produced,
using religious imagery as a source, which have been exhibited in many
Cathedrals across the north of England.
