Daniel Gibson's paintings explore a lexicon of symbols that relate to his familial past and his identity as a Mexican-American. Growing up along the California border with Mexico, Gibson was confronted by the harsh realities of migration to America at an early age. In an effort to face the bleak nature of these journeys, he turned to his imagination—often reshaping reality with fantasy. As a painter, Gibson brings to life the narratives that captivated him as a child, reimagining memories and family stories from the point of view of his earliest years.
Gibson is largely a self-taught artist and has developed his visual language and painting process through intuition and imagination. Shifting between the genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life, the artist’s surrealistic scenes demonstrate an adoration for nature. Gibson revitalizes the world around him in painting, reverently returning to familiar symbols such as flowers, butterflies, figures, desert mountains, beaches, and seas. For the artist, his works are as much autobiographical as they are collective stories that document moments of struggle and celebration that would otherwise be lost to time.
Daniel Gibson (b. 1977 Yuma, AZ) has had solo and two-person exhibitions at Almine Rech, New York, NY; New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA; Ochi Projects, Los Angeles, CA; LAX Art, Los Angeles, CA; and Mexicali Rose, Baja, Mexico. Recent group exhibitions include Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, CA; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Bozo Mag, Los Angeles, CA; and BBQLA, Los Angeles, CA. His works have been written about by WideWalls, Juxtapoz, and Brooklyn Rail.
Daniel Gibson is jointly represented by Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles and Almine Rech.
The artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery Valley of the Moon opens November 13.