Daniel Castan

BIOGRAPHY

2011
- Listed in Akoun
- Harmattan Gallery, Megève (France)
- Guest of Honour at Chartres Art Fair (France)
- International Contemporary Art Fair, Marseille (France)

2010
- Metz Art Fair, Metz (France)
- Public’s Choice, Sully-sur-Loire Art Fair (France)

2009
- Saint Victor Gallery, Geneva (Switzerland)

2007 to 2011
- Bastille Contemporary Art Market, Paris (France)

2007
- Best in Show - All Techniques, Sully-sur-Loire Art Fair (France)

1959
- Born in Saint-Méard- de-Gurçon, Dordogne (France)

Daniel
CASTAN

Daniel started drawing at an early age and sharpened his skills at the School of Fine Arts. After graduation, he worked as a graphic designer, creating his own company and working for clients such as UNICEF, Pierre Balmain and the UN ... At forty, he began to question his move away from art, and a meeting with the painter Pierre Doutreleau gave rise to his desire to live his dream of becoming an artist.
In his first professional life, Daniel travelled extensively in New York and Hong Kong. During these trips he developed a fascination with the urban world and its larger-than-life perspectives, and now he recreates these graphic ambiances in his painting. The lines of buildings are lost in the sky, the wide avenues seem endless, the colours clash. Initially, Daniel worked from photographs he had taken himself. Then through canvas after canvas, brimming with images of Brooklyn, Times Square, and Radio City Music Hall, he finally created more personal pictures of New York out of his imagination. Today only work on the light counts, perspective obscuring all the unnecessary details.
Daniel chooses to paint with alkyd oils, which are worked like traditional oils, but whose bonding allows for accelerated drying, which fits his temperament. Once the painting is finished, he applies thick layers of gloss varnish to reinforce the brightness of the subject. The knife, his tool of choice, allows him to work the material as a paste, in large strokes or to draw in the medium. The choice of this instrument is not accidental; the knife leaves no room for doubt. Daniel is impatient and is guided by gesture. Within minutes the canvas is covered with paint, to which he then adds material which he chisels like a sculptor. The painting comes to life quickly.
A painter by instinct, Daniel lets the paint lead him to an abstract and uncluttered representation. His approach is not calculated ; Daniel does not think, he paints.