Born 1969
Raised in a family that has been collecting and dealing in Asian art since the 1920s, Daniel Eskenazi has a strong interest in both ancient and contemporary Chinese art, from which he draws his inspiration. Exposed to the best artistic and intellectual achievements of Asia from a young age, it is through this mix of cultural, religious, and philosophical influences that his sensibilities have been formed. A sophisticated self-taught photographer, Eskenazi has been creating photographic works since the early 1990s. Eskenazi’s most recent photography work is based on the philosophical process that leads one’s self to be intimately connected with the spirit of nature; in Chinese we call this li, the inner law or spirit of things, or as the German poet Schiller put it: ‘It’s the spirit which builds for itself a body.’ Side by side, his photographic images bring together natural forms as a means to trigger both man’s elemental reactions to imagery, as well as raise questions of the metaphysical.
Commendation
Daniel Eskenazi was selected as ‘one of 53 of the most exciting and innovative artist-photographers of the 21st century’ to be featured in the recently published: Robert Shore. Post-Photography: The Artist with a Camera, 2014, pp. 168-171.