Feature Friday: Daniel Giordano's New Series of Self Portraits

Self Portrait with Tchotchkes, Daniel Giordano, 2019

I'm a huge fan of Daniel Giordano's work and I've been fortunate enough to get to watch him work closely as well as work along side him either helping him produce certain works or here at Plebeian where he's occasionally contributed. Over the last few months he's really been making some noise in the New York art scene with things like his show at Gazebo, his ongoing work with Vicki projects, or his work in the show Soft Temple currently on display at Mother Gallery in New York. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do an interview with Giordano for this particular article, but don't worry that's coming, but I wanted to introduce a new type of Feature Friday where I just analyze work by emerging artists who are a part of our site (like YOU). This type of feature is far more specific, highlighting just one piece or one series, so it doesn't need the interview and allows us to do more work with the artist in the future without just rephrasing the same stuff.

Now Giordano is not your every day sculptor, he's incredibly experimental in process and medium, moving far beyond your standard art making materials. Lately he's been working on this series of pieces, that I talked about a wee bit in my write up on the show Love of the Common Man which Giordano was a part of, and they're these creepy assemblages of material built atop moisturizing face masks and crudely project from the wall with wire. The series is all titled as Self Portrait and then a defining characteristic and they're made with face masks so at their base they have this weird Leatherface like vibe that's haunting as it feels like you're looking at a portrait made from a face that's been removed. Now I'm a lover of the macabre, especially in art, so this was right up my alley. But it's atop these masks that we really start to see some depth as Giordano creates outside shapes, forms and textures through his adventurous use of material. These textures and forms all interact with the mask in their own ways, some subtle some quite assertive but all beautiful, and it's here that Giordano leaves his stamp. We see things here like resin, or epoxy, or clay, which are fairly standard artistic materials, but he always mixes in unique outside materials to push the look and the story behind the piece even further. Things like Orange Tang, licorice, dead bugs add to the narrative of each piece in their own unique way and, even though Giordano does this across most of his work, in this series it's incredibly successful and draws the viewer deeply into the piece.

I could go on and on about this series and the other work that Giordano is doing but I'll leave it short and sweet, just know that this guy is killing it! You can check his work out on his site http://www.danielgiordano.xyz/ , or on his Instagram @danieljgiordano, or at Mother Gallery in New York where the show Soft Temple is currently on display. This is an artist who's really worth looking into, not only because he's doing so well for himself, but also because he's constantly making work and not just the same shit over and over, new work! We'll definitely be talking with and looking at Giordano's work in the near future so keep a lookout!