About Daniel
Enter a room with a Daniel Ambrose egg tempera painting on the wall and you will be captivated by its luminosity. Ambrose’s paintings have been described by reviewers as ethereal and timeless, and his unique ability to capture light draws comparisons to the French Impressionist Claude Monet. Singularly, it is Ambrose’s remarkable ability to communicate mood in paint to express universal human emotions that define his work. “I identify with Andrew Wyeth’s quote that ‘your art only goes as deep as your love,’” he says. At a recent museum exhibit of Daniels work, a collector remarked, “there is something about Ambrose’s paintings.”
Daniel Ambrose’s egg tempera paintings are statements of quiet understated elegance. His sensitive brushstrokes weave layers of subtle colors, inducing light to flow in a lyrical, rhythmic way. “For me, it’s all about the light. The topic is always secondary to the movement of light, and something else, that one thing . . . elusive, primal . . . difficult to define.”
A quiet, gentle soul himself, Ambrose’s work is a celebration of life, capturing the way light illuminates a motif intrigue him and compel him to pick up his brush. He trusts in subtle tones of colors and the flow of light rather than picturesque subjects that draw attention to themselves.
An inspiring teacher, Ambrose also encourages his students to paint what they love. “A painting should be beautiful regardless of the subject matter, if you are true to yourself and you paint it honestly, like Keats said, ‘Truth is Beauty and Beauty Truth,’” he quotes. For Daniel, moonrise above a southern river, the dry winter grasses of an estuary bending below a silent sky, or summer sunlight falling on the weathered lines of an aging structure can speak as eloquently as a Shakespeare sonnet. Ambrose’s paintings are inspiring, uplifting to the human spirit, visual poems expressing his ideas on beauty, what is true and of meaningful value in life. “Things come and go in life, for me, the paintings I leave behind is a way to speak across time, say what it felt like to be a man, alive in the 21st century, love will remain”. Ambrose’s paintings are testimonials reflecting his way of life, and celebrate ideals his collectors hope to espouse—a quest for beauty, an attraction to simplicity and a passion for a gentle existence.
Statement
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.” -Aristotle
My paintings are manifestations of my ideas and emotions, life occurrences expressed in paint. I often use natural landscapes as my guide, as pathways of self-expression, exploration and discovery.
I am after the elusive, intangible qualities of painting. The movement of light and the sense of air excite me, capturing their effect inspires and challenges my intellect. The concept of time passing in an instant or an eon intrigues me. By capturing a fleeting moment in time and suspending it, the artist enables us to relive the experience meaningfully.
In stimulating our senses through our eyes, we enlighten and enrich our lives. As many things represented in life, my paintings are more than they appear to be on the surface. Humanity layered in paint . . . Consider them.
Daniel Ambrose
Winter 2009
