Melbourne-based artist Katie Daniels is a contemporary landscape painter who re-frames the Australian landscape through a palette of vibrant and surreal colours. Daniels captures the essence of the landscape, focusing on the energy, mood and experience of a place.
Within her practice, Daniels’ technical skill is conflated with abstraction and fantasy, creating scenes that are both familiar and otherworldly. Her ability capture the light reflected on the surface of the water or the complex texture of a rustling leaf is beguiling.
In late 2022, Daniels ventured into the dense, fern-covered forests of Olinda and the Dandenong Ranges to collect inspiration for her recent body of work. “I wanted to capture the primordial presence of this untouched landscape,” explains the artist. Daniels was particularly captivated by the ancient tree ferns that populate much of this land, wanting to explore their form, texture and energy within her paintings.
A bold and fearless use of colour defines Daniels’ oeuvre. For the artist, colour is a deeply intuitive process. Her colour palette evolves and adapts with every painting, as the artist allows the painting to guide her mark making. Within Daniels’ most recent body of work, her vibrant colour palette has been transferred to the framing. “For me, using vivid colours that echoed the palette within the paintings connected the frame with the subject,” explained Daniels.
Daniels completed a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wollongong before undergoing a Masters of Arts Curatorship at the University of Melbourne. She has been a finalist in several significant Australian art prizes, including the prestigious Wynne prize (2018) and most recently the Calleen Art Award (2021) of which her work 'Forgive everything' has been acquired by Cowra Regional Gallery for their permanent collection.