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Into My Eyes I am always pleased to find that another has put his feelings on record. So I want you to hear me say, you have made fine and powerful pictures. Fresh pictures. They are from life. -- Letter to Thomas Daniel from photographer, Emmet Gowin The Anderson Gallery of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts is pleased to present Thomas Daniel: Into My Eyes. Tom Daniel is an "underground legend" throughout the Southeastern United States and beyond. Long overdue, this mid-career retrospective, the first comprehensive museum exhibition of his work, spans 25 years of intensely personal collaboration between artist, camera, and subjects. Organized by Anderson Gallery Director Ted Potter and New York critic/curator/poet John Yau, this exhibition includes a remarkable collection of eighty black & white framed images, tracking several major themes the artist has pursued over the past three decades. From three tours as a combat photographer in Vietnam to the current series featuring German WWII veterans, the exhibition explores his remarkable vision and curiosity. His photographs extend out of the documentary vein of Diane Arbus and Gary Winogrand, but his approach and connection with the subject matter is unmistakably and powerfully his own. Daniel’s work has been called controversial and disturbing. It has also been described as brilliant art and genius.
Each of Daniel’s series is self-contained and self-sufficient. Together, they form an emotionally rich, insightful body of work. Working in black & white film, which he prints himself, Daniel possesses a formal mastery which he brings to bear on little known subjects and areas of American life. John Yau, 1999 In the vernacular of his native South, Tom Daniel is as smart as an old coon dog, as resourceful as a mountain hermit, and as sensitive to the human condition as any artist the Anderson Gallery has ever presented. The work has "soul." Daniel loves to take photographs. That is not a throwaway sentence. It defines his life. The hundreds of people who have encountered his camera through the years have sensed it and responded to his passion. Ted Potter, 1999 Daniel’s work has received numerous awards and been shown in group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. He is the only Virginia artist to have received four Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Senior Artists Fellowships. He has exhibited at Princeton University; the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC; and the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA. A comprehensive catalogue is available, printed by Mobility, Inc., corporate lithographers. Exhibition framing was made possible by Fralin Associates Fine Framing Workshop and videography by C. Richard Moore. The exhibition and publication have be made possible in part through the generous support of the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Into My Eyes traveled to the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (2000); The Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2000-2001); and the Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio,Texas (2002). |
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