November 11, 2010 – By Susannah Darrow
It’s not hard to believe that before he ventured into the medium of collage Daniel Biddy began as an abstract painter. His first solo exhibition, Out of Context, currently on display at Barbara Archer Gallery, shows a clear concentration on composition and color that causes individual details to become secondary to overall aesthetic impact. That said, the specific images chosen to make up the collages are what makes them succeed.
To date, I have been primarily familiar with Biddy’s small square compositions, and the exhibition includes a great range of these. But his large-scale pieces, part-painting and part-collage with colors arranged in op-art-esque patterns, are show-stoppers. The fullness and breadth of imagery in the gallery gives us a peek into the inner workings of Biddy’s mind: a wonderful look into the obsessive process that has led the artist to collect so many books and magazines for finding images, as well as the endless hours spent cutting each piece out so exactly. Every element has been considered, down to the whimsically descriptive titles chosen for all 73 works in the series.