In regard to the works of Daniel Biesold one must speak of the metaphysics of emotion, that is to engage with the hidden visible that exists like a living clandestine presence in the human imagination. His paintings evoke the cosmological sense of light within darkness and darkness within light. Working in series his technique is that of pouring/applying paint through a flat surface method that works by addition and subtraction. Paint is applied creating a surface layer that then rubbed down before another surface layer is added. This process continues through multiple layers of application creating the effect of subtle factures and autonomous presences; hidden moments of occasioned sensation. In optical terms the feelings generated are immersive and the viewer immediately senses notions of macrocosm and microcosm, a simultaneous within and without.

However, a mere description of process and practice does not suffice to explain what can only be called the 'state of immanence' that Biesold is able to create in his paintings. If they appear as monochromes or a ideas related to minimal painting on the one hand, in quite another respect they are address a subtle forms of contemplative interior presence. That is to say not only the state of immanence that is referred to, but also the effect it has on the viewer in terms of their being drawn into intense experiences of personal reflection. There is undoubtedly a strong phenomenological tendency, an alchemical elementalism that is indicative of both sensory opacity and at the same time creates spatial extension. If this seems to be paradoxical (opacity and space), its does so to further the immanent conditions and sensory presence found in the paintings. Immanence means literally existing or remaining within, inherent to the mind and intuitive conditions of a given human response. It is in distinction to transcendence that is an imaginary projection of the beyond (lying beyond the range of ordinary perception), something that is mentally implied but most often the product of projection and mental speculation.

The artist's use of intense colour application in this respect, whether expressed through his earlier blue, then red, and more recent grey series, offers an associative set of emotions that feed into the sense of the paintings immediate immanence. It is as Hegel long ago observed that aesthetic immanence is always retained with boundaries of sensory possibility, quite unlike ideas of a transcendent presence which is distinct and separated. To visually assimilate Daniel Biesold's paintings it is far better therefore to think in terms of the metaphysical emotions of consciousness, since the paintings evoke the intuitive and mysterious presence of that which lies hidden within, and not pursue the tired paths of idealistic abstraction or theorised transcendence. In this respect we can still talk of a material cause and effect, and we do not have to stray into vague areas or ideas derived from falsely romanticised notions of an artist who creates visionary paintings.

©Mark Gisbourne