Poetry WITH A BRUSH
Daniel Domig’s paintings are large-format, colour-intensive, and dynamic. Human bodies are often at the focus of his work, allowing the viewer to begin a brain game and, ideally, a free dialogue with the paintings.
On that morning when L’officiel Austria met Daniel Domig, the thermometer was already showing high summer temperatures. The meeting venue is his studio. “Everyone was created for a specific job, and the desire for that job was put into his heart” - that quote by Rumi flashes through one’s mind when sitting in this studio. Everywhere you look, you find tools and traces of someone who devotes himself to his work in an earthy way. The air in the premises smells elusive and natural. “Rabbit-skin glue”, Domig replies nonchalantly in the direction of perplexed nostrils. After a brief speech on the history and merits of said binding material, we plunge into the morning hustle and bustle of Vienna’s seventh district to continue the conversation in a café thanks to the loosened pandemic restrictions.
His foundations
When we ask Daniel Domig what made him choose painting, we learn that his bi-national home led him there in a rather discreet way. “My family background provided a range of opportunities, so it was not far-fetched at all to choose the artistic profession”. Born in Vancouver, Canada, to an American mother from Illinois and an Austrian father from Vorarlberg, he learned early on to embrace contrasting environments and to endure the tensions in between. Although both parents work professionally in a therapeutic field, it is precisely this detail that provides a crucial contribution to what Domig wants to introduce in his works. “There is a psychological level to my paintings. It’s not just about clean surfaces, but also about the beauty of complexity. That’s also what makes good therapy: making breakages visible”. In his view, the aspect of exposing breaking points, which at their best can lead to healing, can also be found in art, namely as a tension between destruction and beauty.
Bias - Beauty
Especially since he mentions the word beauty, he can’t avoid the provocative question of whether art has to represent only the beautiful? “In art per se (itself), we have moved away from depicting only classical forms of anatomical beauty. Just think of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David - completely exaggerated! We live in a time when contemporary ideals of beauty are being questioned,” he notes. The fact that Kate Winslet now makes headlines not only with her acting skills but also with her tough contracts that forbid retouching her pictures has not escaped the painter’s notice either. “Beauty in art has the task of pointing out things we try to avoid”, Domig adds.
His preferences
Dating back to Daniel Domig’s working process: How do his paintings come into being? Where does he source his ideas from? Does he take certain painting styles or approaches as examples? “What fascinates me about painting is the potential to start from the moment of not knowing or absence”. So it may well happen that during a telephone conversation a rudimentary sketch on a post-it can mark the birth of another painting. He does not stick to concepts, but he already has the colour combinations in mind. The figurative elements of his works, especially incomplete figures that are in a process stage, reveal the proximity to Francis Bacon. Nevertheless, his basic sources of inspiration are not to be found among the masters of painting”. I find the greatest influence on my work in literature. Samuel Beckett has a very versatile style of dealing with language, which appeals to me very much”, says Domig.
Lege artis
Meanwhile, Daniel Domig can look back on almost two decades in which he has been intensively engaged with the medium of painting. His paintings are internationally presented and are in private collections worldwide. His most recent cycle of paintings with the appellative title “Teach us to sit still”, an excerpt in which he uses a lyrical work by T. S. Eliot, adorns the walls of a gallery in Sydney at the time of our meeting. The large-scale works expose the resonance between being forced to sit still by global lockdowns and people. “The idea of sitting still suggests doing nothing, which has little appeal in today’s meritocracy”, the artist indicates. “But doing nothing is not so easy. Those who can do it continue to grow in other areas”. Daniel Domig has seized this opportunity. He has learned to complete paintings even in moments where there were still many uncertainties and questions. Viewers would appreciate this new quality in his workflow. At the end it is something ill-considered, deliberately left open, not perfect”. If we find that okay, then that’s also a kind of further beauty, to accept what life shows us”, Domig thinks. A beautiful thought.
“BEAUTY in art has the TASK of POINTING OUT things that we don’t notice.” Daniel Domig