Daniel o'toole

Luminous Unknown

Modern Times 3/8/2023 - 15/8/2023

In this new body work, O’Toole delves into the realm of colour and light frequencies beyond human perception, inspired by the extraordinary vision of creatures from the insect world. Intrigued by the notion that butterflies can perceive light frequencies beyond our potential, O’Toole embarks on a journey to divulge the unseen. A resonating palette of luminous oranges, vibrant pinks and fluorescent greens are hidden behind a semi transparent layer of acrylic. This layer, coupled with discreetly placed mirrors, acts as a light refracting veil, melting each colour softly into one another.

O’Toole translates the intangible into visual form, incorporating a harmonious interplay of colours that exude both subtlety and unease. The juxtaposition of opposing hues with similar tonal values creates a sensory symphony, evoking a sense of discovery akin to witnessing the mesmerising iridescence found in nature.

Accompanied by a 11 track album the exhibition builds an audio visual environment intended to gently alter your perception and allow the audience to sink into a feeling of timelessness.

Essay -

Baden Pailthorpe

What’s it like to live beyond the edge of human perception? This is an almost impossible question to answer of course. Yet in Luminous Unknown, Daniel O’Toole invites us to boldly step into this ‘almost’ and settle into non-human senses for a moment.

Over a hundred years ago, biologist Jakob von Uexküll was looking closely at insects and the way they perceive their specific environments using their senses. He argued that organisms exist in an umwelt – a ‘selfworld’ entirely specific to that organism and the spatial and temporal capacities of its senses. We now know that butterflies, for example, can see light frequencies well beyond human vision, such as infrared and UV light. Our own umwelt is a direct result of the interaction between our senses and our environment in a beautiful and complex reciprocity.

Diving deep into these more than human perceptual worlds, O’Toole creates his own aesthetic umwelt for us to experience, using images, audio, materials and space. Bringing together sound from the Louvre in Paris (recorded by artistic duo Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier, as part of THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG), and optical illusions from video files, O'Toole plays across digital and non-linear forms in a way that opens up the possibility for us to see the world another way.   As a musician, audio is always a significant part of O'Toole's practice. Just like light, sound can create and manipulate shapes, colour, form and space. He uses this in different ways, but in this exhibition, O'Toole creates audio visual synergies that flow from harmonious and discordant relationships to the tonal ranges of imagery and the sonic trace of field recordings.

The visual artworks in Luminous Unknown are accompanied by a new record with eleven musical compositions by O’Toole. Combining a live string quartet with synthesised electronic music, his sound fills the space of perceptual possibilities, not only enhancing the experience of the artworks, but layering new kinds of aesthetic dimensions to them. This whole of body sensory experience is crafted specifically for you, in a way that creates a bridge between your body, your world and O’Toole’s. Audio from the almost sacred galleries of the Musée du Louvre documents the sonic trace of distant human bodies in space as they undergo the aesthetic experience of the western canon. These experiences are then transported to this gallery space, and shape our own perception of O'Toole's imagery.

There's a kind of spatial folding at work here that allows for new understandings of place and time to emerge. O’Toole is one of those artists with a seemingly endless drive and an infinite curiosity about the world. Luminous Unknown embodies these almost limitless energies and his passion for experimentation – it illuminates the unknown almost impossibly.

Baden Pailthorpe, 2023