POINT101 INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL ROOZENDAAL
An interview with Daniel Roozendaal
We were very intrigued when we first printed Daniel's work at Point101 and, curious to learn how these artworks came to be, we contacted him to find out.
Daniel is represented by George Grace Represents, a digital illustration agency working with commercial artists who specialise in CGI, typography and animation.
How did you come to be represented by George Grace
DR: A few months ago my work went alright, but was still looking for representation for quite a while. Next to my work within The Netherlands, I felt my illustrations and portraits could also work internationally, but I didn’t have the connections for that or know the right people. I then saw George Grace coming by on social media, and with the limited roster of artists and quality work, his agency appealed to me. I decided to send him an email, and I got a positive reply from George. From there on we started our collaboration.
What is your preferred medium?
DR: My preferred medium is pen, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I actually wasn’t very fond of working digitally for a long time, but since a few years I’ve been experiencing the advantages of it, and I couldn’t do without it anymore. However, the last few months an urge for painting/drawing started growing, so I might pick that up again!
You have a very particular style, how did you develop this?
DR: When I just finished art school in 2009 I had a very diverse style, actually, it couldn’t really be described as one style. I did everything from painting to drawing to collages etc. After a while I realised my work was too diverse for commercial use (this being the path I wanted to follow), potential clients wouldn’t really know what to expect if they would ask me for a job. So I consciously decided to take my work more in one particular direction.
I liked the contrast of raw and blunt painted shapes, and delicate and realistic pencil drawings on top of that, so that’s what I did for a while. However, after some time I came to the conclusion that the realistic drawing was too time consuming; it didn’t work well in commercial jobs. I then started to look for simplification, dropping the realistic drawing and developing the work built up out of just the (organic) shapes. That’s when my work started to look like the way it looks now. From that point on I started fine-tuning this way of working. I started drawing shapes on printed photo images, scanning them and editing them digitally, creating layers of those shapes on top of each other. Later on I added more geometrical shapes, creating a contrast between organic and geometrical shapes.
Why do you choose the subjects that you do?
DR: Subjects are mostly chosen due to a certain brief, but obviously I have a preference for portraits. I find the organic shapes that can be found in a human face very interesting, and I think my style works best when depicting those shapes.
When you aren’t producing art, what do you like to do?
DR: Kind of cliché, but just the usual. Hanging with friends, being bored, drinking a beer, waiting for public transport, going to a party, cleaning my house, watching pointless shows on television, being massaged, clipping my toe nails and eating tasteless food.
Find more of his work here.
Follow him on Instagram.
Learn more about George Grace Represents.