Daniel Hicks (Courtesy photo)
Art, Golden Hill
Off The Grid
Golden Hill Artist Daniel Hicks Makes an Unorthodox Splash Into the Art Scene
By Frank Sabatini Jr.
His artwork transcends common genres. And the domestic and global exposure he enjoys stems partly from a unique gesture that has reached people’s mailboxes as far away as Scandinavia and India.
Daniel Hicks attributes the “dark days” of the pandemic as the catalyst for creating more than 100 fresh compositions since 2020. Those works resonate to a range of adjectives that include non-representational, geometric, typographic, minimalist, and grid-based.
Some of them will appear in his first solo art show, titled Informal Arrangements, on Oct. 7 through Nov. 5 at Thumbprint Gallery in La Jolla. The milestone event comes on the heels of a dozen local group shows in which he has taken part, including his gallery debut at Visual in North Park a year and a half ago.
We caught up with Hicks at his Golden Hill residence, which he shares with his wife, Gokcen, and where his eye-grabbing pieces are created with deft precision.
Downtown Condo Guys: Are you a natural-born artist? Or were you schooled for it?
Hicks: I don’t have any formal training in the arts. I would say that my first interaction with graphic arts and design in general coincided with my early stages of interacting with the hard-core punk rock scene and the skateboarding scene in the 80s and 90s. That’s when I began gravitating to graphic arts specifically because of the DIY ethos that is so inherent in those sub cultures. We were making our own music, making our own flyers, booking our own tours. Everything was at the ready and could be done with your own hands. That is ever-present in my thinking.
Also, I’ve always had a penchant for creating and recreating with new and found objects. I would doodle as a flip pastime but I never sketched or drew in the formal sense. I think I’ve always been optically in tune to what others may pass over. The collection of work I’ll be presenting at my solo show in La Jolla utilizes a lot of found and repurposed materials
Downtown Condo Guys: Tell us about that show.
Hicks: Coming from a graphic design background, a great deal of my work is printed matter. I also do a lot of analog, collage type of work, which will be the focus of the show. I’ll have 18 smaller-scale pieces on paper.
Downtown Condo Guys: Aside from paper elements, what other materials do you use in your art?
Hicks: Recently I’ve been transitioning my work into larger wood and steel compositions.
Downtown Condo Guys: How did you land your first gallery gig at Visual in North Park?
Hicks: Oddly enough I had just told my wife that I was very focused on showing my work. So when we were walking in North Park, I went into Visual gallery and approached owner Jason Gould and told him what I was working on. He was very open to me coming back to show him my recent portfolio of work—which I did. He was extremely responsive and offered me the opportunity to take part in the next group show he was putting on.
Downtown Condo Guys: Did you start selling your pieces fresh out of the gate upon that first gallery show at Visual?
Hicks: Yes. And I continue to do so.
Downtown Condo Guys: How else do you market yourself?
Hicks: I’ve had other gallery owners approach me in person and through my Instagram account. And during each month through 2020, I started a series of 12 compositions called “Twelve for Twenty.” Each of them are specific strains of artistic expression I felt during those months. When I completed the cycle of the 12 prints, I began sending packets of those 12 prints to 20 friends, colleagues and strangers, domestically and internationally. (States and countries included, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, and India.)
I completed the project in May of this year. I didn’t rush or force it. And I paid for all the postage, packing and handling.
Downtown Condo Guys: What factors played into choosing your recipients?
Hicks: I chose people whose works and dialogues I found intriguing either in-person or through Instagram.
Downtown Condo Guys: Did your kind gesture result in any reciprocated gifts?
Hicks: Yes. I received multiple prints and collages from some of the artists in return. The project was never intended as a trade. But if others felt comfortable in gifting me their work as a show of gratitude, I was more than happy to receive it.
Downtown Condo Guys: Are there any artists, living or dead, who have served as an inspiration or guidepost for you?
Hicks: I consider art to be an accumulative endeavor, therefore on a whole I’ve been more influenced by specific movements and currents within the arts, rather than by individuals.
Downtown Condo Guys: Have any national or international media picked up on your work?
Hicks: I participated in Dutch artist Lydia Wierenga’s A6 Murals Worldwide Project, and I was featured in a German graphic design periodical called Slanted (issue 36). I also have two poster designs coming out in a future Slanted publication entitled Posters Can Help, in which all proceeds will go to Arts Help and Doctors Without Borders.
Downtown Condo Guys: Where would you like to see your art endeavors go in the next five years?
Hicks: I would like to continue to continue what I’m doing. Having said that, I’d certainly like to see my work travel to galleries further up the coast and abroad.
