Disenchanted Forest Exhibit
October 5th, 2006 - October 26th, 2006About the Exhibit:
With impeccable craftsmanship, photo-realistic attention to detail, and clever innate symbolism, Daniel du Plessis rivets his viewers with an exploration of love, loss, struggle, pain and survival through nature and its landscape imagery. His paintings come alive with vine-choked gardens, thorny over-grown branches, and luscious blossoming flowers, reminiscent of the detail of the great vanitas still lives of Baroque era. And yet, du Plessis makes his work poignantly contemporary, with painfully-struck living creatures and hidden symbols that redefine the viewer’s perspective. Within his many layers of paint on plexi, he floats found objects, invisible collage, and ghostly digital images both, above and below the surface. In turn, these layers subliminally appear and disappear, and then re-appear once more. Du Plessis, most recently, has also incorporated a three-dimensional quality to his to two-dimensional works, which reaches out to the viewer, becoming a sculptural integration to “our” world reality. Viewers will be enlightened and disturbed, joyful and melancholy as they travel through the dense woodlands, experiencing first, the beauty and joy of nature, and then upon closer look, finding themselves trapped in the depths of the jungle and the far reaches of the disenchanted forest.
