Daniel Gordon

Inspired by his interest in the popularity of certain subjects on the internet, houseplants among them, Gordon meticulously cuts up pictures found online to create sculptural and fantastical still lifes. He uses photography not to show reality, but to present a new version of it. The crumpled paper and mix of realistic and unnatural colors render the objects slightly goofy. "Without seams and faults and limitations, my project would be very different,"Gordon says. "The seamlessness of the ether is boring to me, but the materialization of that ether, I think, can be very interesting."His pieces are a perfect marriage of digital and analog processes and of high and low artistic references, complicating what is understood as sculpture, photography, painting, and the cutout.

Only a handful of copies were signed. The signature and colophon are in the small flap on bottom right of last page/back cover.

Daniel Gordon's project DUETS with Three Star Books departs from the traditional photobook model. Rather than simply reproducing images, the book is conceived as an artwork in which photography itself is the medium. Gordon works at the intersection of photography and art: his images are constructed, exploring illusion, composition, and perception, while the book's sixty-page structure foregrounds its own temporality and makes the experience of moving through the book an integral part of the artistic experience.

Unlike film, whose viewing conditions have been transformed by digital technologies, the book medium has always allowed for a decomposed and non-linear experience: it can be approached from beginning to end, read in reverse, opened at random, or paused indefinitely. In DUETS, this inherent freedom becomes central to the work's proposal.

The artist's design introduces an additional layer of complexity. Through an original layout and varying page formats, images are alternately concealed and revealed. Pages overlap, fragment, and reframe one another, generating shifting visual relationships as the reader moves through the volume. The work thus becomes tactile and performative: the act of turning pages activates the images. In doing so, the conventional distance between artwork and reproduction is effectively dissolved, evoking Michael Snow's Cover to Cover (1975), where the physical movement through the book is integral to the artwork itself.

The images themselves belong to a new series that deepens Gordon's longstanding investigation of illusion. Known for constructing and photographing studio-built assemblages, the artist here introduces a second degree of artifice through pseudo-transparency. Elements such as glasses or glass vases appear translucent, yet this impression of transparency is simulated within opaque prints. The subjects Gordon creates ' vases, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and other timeless motifs ' evoke the tradition of the nature morte, an endlessly renewable framework through which artists express shifting emotional and conceptual registers. Gordon emphasizes the paradox inherent to still life: although the genre suggests stasis or death, his images feel vividly alive, animated by color, composition, and perceptual play.

Color which plays a decisive role in DUETS is calibrated with micro-tonal precision and reproduced through HP Indigo printing, the images achieve remarkable chromatic depth and nuance. Ultimately, illusion lies at the core of the project: rather than reflecting reality, DUETS embraces artifice as a means of generating emotion, suggesting that a true work of art engages less with the real than with the power of illusion to shape perception and feeling.A rubber stamp print designed at Three Star Books is affixed to the first page of the book, authenticating the project, and is accompanied by the edition number and the artist's signature. Finally, the book is enclosed in a slipcase featuring one of the backgrounds Daniel Gordon created for a composition in DUETS.

In 2024, Daniel Gordon began a series of black-and-white photographs that delve into transparency, light, and shadow, inviting viewers into an active process of questioning reality versus perceived interpretation. Objects at Hand centers on familiar objects found in his home and studio ' such as glasses, kitchenware, and stationery ' arranged in striking tableaux that probe the relationship between images and objects. Many objects in his compositions appear to have a translucent quality, giving the impression that one can peer though, yet, in reality, the photographed object is entirely opaque. This subtle contradiction between appearance and reality complicates the viewing experience, compelling a closer, more intentional gaze.

Presented entirely in grayscale and without the distraction of color, Gordon's photographs emphasize rhythm and form through dramatic shadows cast by his studio lighting, lending the images a gravitas reminiscent of canonical modernist photography. In addition to the photographs from this new body of work, Objects at Hand includes a conversation between Gordon and friend and fellow artist Lucas Blalock, exploring the ways in which their respective studio practices continue to evolve.