Over
the course of thirty years, working in virtual seclusion
from the mainstream, Daniel
Brush has created an unparalleled body of
work. His career includes international painting exhibitions,
a fifteen-year period of seclusion and study, and an intense
immersion
into the
mysteries of gold. His large-scale canvases and drawings—inspired
by the expressive, disciplined gestures of the Noh theatre—integrate
the artist's profound understanding of Asian thought with the
removed drama in modernist painting. Brush's three-dimensional works—products
of solitary thought, study and experimentation—are included
in many public, private and royal collections. These works include
delicate granulated gold domes in the traditions of the ancient goldsmiths,
jewel-encrusted objects of virtue and fantasy and gold and steel
sculptures, some only a few inches high. Imbued with a timeless quality
and mesmerizing in the intricacy and daring of the fabrication, Brush's
objects bear comparison with the work of historical masters. His
current wall pieces in blued steel and pure gold engage the ambient
light. Brush’s table works in stainless steel and pure
gold, hand-engraved with thousands of rhythmic lines, are visual
poems
that record the passage of time. Daniel Brush has developed
a rigorous personal aesthetic marked by its intellectual force,
mastery of
techniques and the science of materials. His idiosyncratic,
contemplative
work
marks a journey of evolving mastery, and bodies forth a deeply
expressive voice in American art.
“Brush is a Prometheus,
stealing lightning from the gods to make objects as miraculous
as they are.”
– Donald Kuspit
“If I were Alexander the Great and had fought my way
across the Indus, to restore my equanimity I would retire with one of these
objects.”
– Jeremy Adamson
“A creative person knows that what he or she calls
work is nothing of the sort. It is a process of life. So, to understand what
Daniel Brush does, it helps to consider the whole of his existence: his dedication
bordering on obsession, his rituals and routines; his stimulations—reading
Zen to do sculpture, sweeping the floor to find a mood, eating the same meal
every day for twenty years to find comfort, seeking solitude to find enlightenment.
That way, knowing the obliqueness of the artist’s life, and even his
apparent dysfunction, it is possible to approach an understanding of what the
word creation means.”
– Paul Theroux
"Why
do I work with this? I work with it, because I don't understand
it," says Brush.
– CBS
Sunday Morning , January 25, 2004