Ollie Daniels
Nature is more than a backdrop; it is a living force to coexist with, engage with, absorbing all its energies and its stories. Ollie Daniels’ practice is a conversation between his mind, body, and the natural world. Through various styles of performance, he explores experiences of life and the universe in a way that make sense of everything. By combining sculpture and performance, he physicalises the textures of nature – the mixture of grains of sand and soil under nails and between fingers and toes, the delicate balance of fragility and rigidity of the brutalist rocks and stones, the softness of vegetation, the weight of air - and how these sensory experiences shape the understanding of his place on this earth. He invites the audience not only to observe but to feel - to become aware of their own bodies, their own skin, and their connection to the earth beneath them. In this space of shared experience, he aims to reconnect with the primal elements that shape our sense of identity and belonging. This is a journey of discovering both nature and the self through touch, presence, and flow.
The centre point of Daniels’ artistic identity emerges from the winding roads of recovery and relapse living with anorexia nervosa and it is through this lens that he explores body, identity, and control. SuIering from anorexia nervosa is consuming, constant voices and pressures pushing in and pulling apart and he chooses to explore this torment through creativity. Anorexia is both an invisible prison and a relentless mirror, reflecting back distorted images of self-worth, fear, and vulnerability. Through art, he confronts these distortions, translating the inner turmoil into physical form, making sense of the mental and physical illness that has consumed him for much of his life.
Daniels uses the body as a canvas and a vessel, navigating the boundaries of nourishment and deprivation, presence and absence, fragility and resilience. By engaging with food, ritual, and movement, he seeks to externalise the silent dialogue that exists between mind and body - the struggle to claim autonomy over a body that feels perpetually out of control.
Inspired by Marina Abramović, Daniels’ desperation for shock, danger and the body comes through in his performances and the deep exploration of himself and the universe. Each performance is an immersion into the physicality of being, a dance between human vulnerability and nature’s raw presence. Allowing the environment to paint, erode, and mark his body with mud, water, wind, and fire, his body becomes a canvas for all the textures and feelings that life throws at him. Through these tactile interactions, he experiments with the themes of transformation, impermanence, and the blurred boundaries between the self and the world around him.
Questioning the boundaries being pushed, it is his mission is to bring back the bravery of the 60s and 70s and recharge performance to the height of ridiculousness. He wants to have one foot in the past and one foot in the future, so that he can piss on the present.
