ANTHONY DALEY
Tony Daley’s studio is a long and narrow space with a slight twist in it. From the window looking out onto Deptford Creek, light bursts in on a maelstrom of images, stacked stretchers, huge canvases stretched naked on the walls, pages torn from magazines, paint-brushes silhouetted against the light. The floor is buried under a landscape of things – books stacked like rock towers, bolts of canvas and unknown outcrops pitted with paint-trays. In a hollow near the window, a simple leather-padded chair sits facing the thin spire of an easel on which two small canvases rest one above the other. They are unfinished, or part-begun, their colours still brooding on the palettes and paper plates that hover in the foreground. On the wall behind, a junk-shop Dutch Master of sailing boats in a strong wind hangs above a portrait of a 50s icon who might be Elvis or James Dean; a rosy-fingered dawn on a small square canvas acts as a shoulder on which the larger painting above can stand; a half-naked torso from a fashion mag hides its face behind a book jacket on Joseph Wright of Derby. The air is still.
But if these things sound like they are the relics of random placements frozen in time, they are not. They are in a constant state of flux, shifting with each new session of work, each a stimulus and counterpoint to the images growing on the walls and easel. They are abstract in that they are not strictly representational but they include a whole host of references, ideas, of histories.
Tony Daley came to Britain from Jamaica in 1972, studied art first in Leeds then Wimbledon College of Art and finally at Chelsea where he was selected as the first Artist of the Day at the Angela Flowers Gallery in 1983 – ‘the large canvases were hung impeccably, the walls pristine, everything in order. It was a triumph.’ (AF 1983). It is not that Daley makes order out of chaos so much as he makes life out of Life, drawing the threads of his experience together into new visions that shine with the light of their origins.
Daley's latest works are presented at the Tiesenhausen Collectors Club, which is a private art collectors club located in Notting Hill, London.
‘The activity of painting itself never ceases to amaze me… how the application of essentially primitive, earthy stuff as basic materials mingled with the artist’s drive, imagination and instincts can conjure up untold magic, wonder and awe.’ TD
Possabella, 2019 214 x 168cm (Photo: Paul Khera, 2020)
LINKS
tonydaleyart > Instagram
Tony Daley teaches at The Essential School of Painting (ESOP), an alternative art school based in Wood Green, London, which specialises in short and year-long courses taught by leading contemporary artists.
Anthony Daley also features in the book Black Artists in British Art by the renowned art critic Eddy Chambers.
His work is featured in Small is Beautiful at the Flowers Gallery
Dichotamous, 2020 214 x 168cm (Photo: Paul Khera, 2020)
Like Loving Under a Heavy Sky, 2015 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40cm
A haze of washed grey shifts towards the green-blue of a clear sea and a darkness. Foliage flickers in silhouette, half hiding the warmth of two figures standing close but unreadable in a pool of watery light. The brightness has passed, what remains is a retinal shadow. (Like Loving Under a Heavy Sky, 2015)
Light falls from above, tangible and miraculous, filling even the slightest shade with rose. Colours coalesce into materiality, still mutable yet alive, drawing together on meniscus threads. (Like Strolling in the Elements, 2015)
Like Strolling in the Elements, 2015
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Recent Solo exhibitions include:
2012-15 Recent Paintings: Riverside Gallery, Lewisham Hospital. London
2012 New work: Urban Space. Los Angeles , USA
2009 Big Paintings: The Conservatoire. London
Recent Group exhibitions include:
2015 Small is Beautiful: Flowers Central Gallery, Cork Street. London
2015 Twenty Years: APT Gallery. London
2015 Paintings: The lovely Gallery. London
A full CV is available here.
Selected Bibliography
2014 Black Artists in British Art: Eddy Chambers
2014 30 years of Artist of the day: Flowers Gallery
2014 Artist of the day: The financial times
2012 Uncaught Hares: The Stephen Lawrence Gallery
2008 Abstract Paintings: The Metro Publications
2000 Dinosaurs Blood: Caroline Saunders
1999 Transforming the Crown: Museum of Harlem
1995 Art Today: Edward Lucie-smith
1992 The Dub Factor Eddy Chambers
1990 Anthony Daley Paintings: Drumcroon Art Gallery
1990 The London Group: The London Group
1988 Modern Painters: Peter Fuller