Daniel Van de Velde

2006 Kamiyama Artist in Residence participant
In Kamiyama from September 18 to November 18, 2006

Born in 1964, Daniel Van de Velde lives in France. Through sculpture, installation, photography, writing, or video, he looks for the most appropriate answers on each purpose of intervention and exhibition offered to him. He is working on a perception of environment, where humanity is felt as a part of it. His installations are therefore often thought and realized in collaboration with the community where they take place.

At Oawa yama Mountain

Works by Daniel Van de Velde
Artist Report

Empty

Daniel Van de Velde“Empty”2006

Untitled

Daniel Van de Velde“Untitled”2006

My studio was open every day to students, to Kamiyama inhabitants. We had many exchanges, many conversations. I was fufilled daily with a feeling of Tokushima prefecture area in a cultural, social, and environmental way; work in progress, collaboration with local artists. My work: a combination of many local tools, materials, and kindnesses of local people. The result: a specific Kamiyama (and Tokushima prefecture) production. That doesn't mean that it's a local production, each art piece is felt as an open field, a mixed area of thinking through visual arts, a bridge between art, nature, culture, and people. Yes, an open field… a never ending field.
Daniel used wooden materials found in Kamiyama to make a wooden sculpture like the works he had displayed in Europe. He barked a red pine tree of about 60cm in diameter, cut it into ten parts 50cm long, and then hollowed each log, leaving only parts that grew during certain periods according to the annual growth rings. JOined up with iron rods, the hollowed log column was them placed under the cherry tree at the Kaizen Centre in Kamiyama, looking like a telescope through which to look up to the sky. Looking into the sculpture from below, one can see the space where the dead branches and the sky meet. This is an installation that holds time, showing different views in different seasons.