Daniel Paulo BIOGRAPHY

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.  A large body of religious inspired figurative work was produced between 2005-6 and this work has toured many cathedrals under the title "Admitting the Strange Angels".

"Just lately I am thinking about going into the third dimension....."