Présentation de l'artiste

Daniel Grant

The images I produce tell a story of the experiences that I have had the opportunity to

be a part of. My formative years were spent traveling through the United States, Mexico

and Europe, where culture, art and the natural environment made a lasting impression.

I searched for the best way to be expressive and to create my own unique form of

storytelling. My voice was found through the novel and unique views of vintage,

medium format film cameras. These cameras were first produced in the 1960’s as

children’s toys. Today they have a cult following with photographers, not because of

their perfection, but for their lack of precision, control and focus. By taking away the

technical aspect of picture making, a sincere representation of the subject matter and

vision of the photographer becomes evident.

In the photographic series My Affair with Diana, Daniel Grant captures compelling

vignettes of women using a Diana: a mid-century plastic camera embraced by

contemporary artists for its simplicity of use, expressive results, and iconic square format.

He used the same camera while traveling through the United States, Mexico, and

Europe and found the photographs it produced favorably unpredictable: alternately

crisp, then unfocused; moody, then stunning. These qualities prompted his use of the

Diana for this photographic essay on the female form and the symbolic embodiment of

the feminine as muse. The bodies he photographs morph from shadowed to brilliant,

hard-edged to soft, as the arbitrary focus and pinhole vignettes characteristic of the

camera lend at one moment a dramatic chiaroscuro and at another a dreamlike

pictorialism. Equating the Diana with a lover, the series title hints at the shifting

landscape of intimacy ― and implies that the greatest love affairs are those between

artists and their work.

Theo Giacometti

Pasquale Biasco

Stephanie O'Connor

Tomoko Nakagawa