BIO
Daniel Flahiff (b. 1966, Los Angeles; lives and works in New York) is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, film, painting, drawing, and installation. Trained as an illustrator and designer at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, he went on to earn his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where he studied under Mike Kelly, Stephen Prina, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. After 28 years as an art and creative director, Daniel relocated from Seattle to New York City to focus full-time on his fine art practice. He is a recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including gold, silver, and platinum Telly Awards, and a 2023 Anthem Award. Flahiff's short film, Dad Bod, was awarded the Best Short Documentary award at the 2024 Oregon Documentary Film Festival and has been screened internationally. He has been featured in press outlets including 425 Magazine, Seattle P-I, and Modern Art Notes. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Royal Melbourne Institue of Technology, Melbourne, Australia; Three Day Weekend, Los Angeles; Röda Sten, Göteborg, Sweden; FRAME, Copenhagen, Denmark; Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden; The Pilot Space, Auckland, New Zealand; California State University, Los Angeles; Wonderful World of Art, Seattle; Photo Center NW, Seattle; OK Hotel, Seattle; and the Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue; Glowlab, Brooklyn, NY.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My practice moves fluidly between photography, film, painting, drawing, and installation. I begin in the streets, working with a mirrorless digital camera to capture fleeting, unguarded moments — gestures, fragments, and collisions of light within the city’s daily life. These images are gathered quickly, instinctively, using natural light and minimal intervention.
From this visual archive, I extract stills, sequences, and textures that become foundations for further work. In the studio, I translate these photographic traces into layered surfaces through paint, mixed media, and digital manipulation. Pigment is applied in successive layers — brushed, scraped, sanded, and reworked — until the surface carries both accumulation and erosion. I allow textures, seams, and transparencies to remain visible, so that the history of making stays on the surface.
Each piece develops through repeated cycles of construction and abrasion, revealing the image’s inner structure rather than concealing it. Materials such as gesso, graphite, paper, and acrylic medium intermingle with photographic transfers and traces of drawn line. The result is not a polished surface but one that refracts light through its own fractures — an image built from the residue of observation and touch.
My vocabulary is rooted in NYC Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist traditions—from Kline, Rothko, and Mitchell to Newman, Serra, and Martin—reinterpreting and extending their questions of form, presence, light, and inner space for our time. I pursue this through a posture of redemption: to see the city as a body, not a battleground, and to tend to its aesthetic and spiritual wounds.
In this sense, my current work continues a lineage of artists who weave faith and transcendence into contemporary art — from Kiefer and Fujimura today and extending back through the visionary traditions of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Fra Angelico. Through photography, video, and painting, I explore urban space as a sacred encounter, where each image becomes not just a picture but a potential vessel of grace.
Through the use of these approaches and techniques, I am, in the words of James Baldwin, attempting to "make something meaningful of the suffering and joy that we experience. Art, in this sense, is a form of grace—it is where we meet God, in the act of creation."
-Daniel Flahiff, 2025
CV
AWARDS:
Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Best Short Doc [2024]
Telly Awards, Silver (X2) [2024]
Oregon Short Film Festival, Best Micro Doc [2024]
Telly Awards, Gold [2023]
Anthem Awards, Bronze [2023]
AVA Digital Awards, Gold [2023]
International Design Awards, Gold [2023]
Viddy Awards, Platinum (x2) [2022]
MarCom Awards, Gold [2022]
The Davey Awards, Gold (X2) [2022]
Hermes Creative Awards, Platinum [2022]
Muse Creative Award, Silver [2022]
SELECTED PRESS:
425 Magazine, Seattle P-I, Modern Art Notes
EXHIBITIONS/FESTIVALS:
“A Summer of Hope,” Lens/Scratch [2025]
'Fremkaldelse / Into the Light' Copenhagen Photo Festival, Denmark [2025]
LaCrosse Action Film Festival, LaCrosse, WI [2024]
Fresh Coast Film Festival, Marquette, MI [2024]
Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Portland, OR [2024]
New York Indie Shorts, New York, NY [2024]
Movie Crush, Walla Walla, WA [2024]
Daddying Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA [2024]
Hollywood Short Film Festival, Hollywood, CA [2024]
New Hope Film Festival, New Hope, PA [2024]
Frozen River Film Festival, Winona, MN [2024]
Oregon Short Film Festival, Portland, OR [2023]
Cannes Indy Short Film Festival, Cannes, France [2023]
“Long Shot,” Photo Center NW, Seattle, WA [2011]
“Power to the Poster,” The New BLK, Omaha, NE [2010]
“CitizenGallery,” Power to the Poster, Match Factory Project [2009]
“Snap to Grid,” LACDA, Los Angeles, CA [2007]
“Bleeding Hearts,” Gallery OK, OK Hotel, Seattle, WA [2007]
“Conflux,” Glowlab via Free Press, Brooklyn, NY [2006]
“Labyrinth,” Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden [2006]
“Free Press,” Röda Sten, Göteborg, Sweden [2006]
“Menlo Park,” Gallery OK, OK Hotel, Seattle, WA [2006]
“International Experimental Cinema Exposition,” Telluride, CO [2000]
“Transmission/Reception,” The Pilot Space, Auckland, New Zealand [1997]
“Territorial Motif,” Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia [1997]
“IMFA,” California State University, Los Angeles, CA [1996]
“Society,” feat. Dietrich Diedrichson, Three Day Weekend, Los Angeles, CA [1995]
“Disegno et Altri Miti,” The Lofts, Seattle, WA [1994]
“Early Thaw: Paintings,” School of Visual Concepts, Seattle, WA [1993]
“Pacific Northwest Annual Exhibition, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA [1992]
“33rd Magnolia Juried Exhibition,” Magnolia, WA [1992]
“Eclectic as the Day is Long,” Wonderful World of Art, Seattle, WA [1992]
“Mercer Island 24th Juried Exhibition,” Mercer Island, WA [1991]