FAÇADE | daniel preece 

Shopfronts have been a central and recurring motif in Daniel’s work for over 15 years. They capture the themes that preoccupy him and allow him to investigate geometry and colour at the boundary between abstraction and figuration. We’ve brought together 15 paintings from his first major painting of the subject, Burger King & Boots, in 2009 to Bargain Booze fresh from the studio this year.

This exhibition embraces the breadth of Daniel’s work including intimate studies on board and vast street views on canvas. We peer into the illuminated shop window from an empty city street at night. We pause to delight in the striking colour contrasts of the local newsagent usually rushed past without a second glance.  

‘We come away from his paintings with eyes refreshed, and perhaps a little wider open, to look again with a closer curiosity at the world immediately about us, and find our Preeces for ourselves in that deserted street, the house on the corner, or the block of flats glimpsed in the distance above the roofs.’ William Packer - art critic

Initially Daniel was drawn to the formal structure of the shopfront - enjoying the interplay of abstraction, geometry and colour -  imagining the windows as a painting within a painting - and trying where possible to eliminate any sense of perspective. He became increasingly intrigued by the shopfront’s layered meaning - symbols of consumerism but also community - representing the city’s health and wealth but also its decay and decline. Cities are changing, high streets in flux - reflecting wider changes in the ways we live. 

Daniel’s atmospheric paintings are devoid of people, the narrative is hinted at so we can interpret the scene as we choose. They celebrate and elevate the city in its gritty glory all deliciously composed in his distinct, vivid colour palette. 

‘Colour is the thing that drives everything that I do when it comes to painting. Trying to make the colour come alive or sing and give the place or the space some sense of atmosphere or feeling through the use of colour.’

Daniel Preece (b. 1970) trained at Chelsea School of Art (1988-89) and the Slade School of Fine Art (1989-93) followed by a postgraduate year at Royal Drawing School (2006-07). 

Awards and residencies include; William Coldstream Prize Slade School of Fine Art, Boise Scholarship to travel and make work in America, Artist in Residence Kensington Palace,  Artist in Residence at Level 39, Canary Wharf.

Member of the London Group and Chelsea Arts Club.

Solo Exhibitions include: Hymn to Home at the London Art Fair: Edit, 2021; London Panoramas, Slade Summer School; ELEVATION the City Re-seen, Gillions Art; Twilight, Canary Wharf Windows Gallery;  Landmarks Capsticks, Solicitors, Wimbledon; Olympic Paintings, Canary Wharf Windows Gallery; Intimate Isolation, Project Gallery; Paintings about Everything and Nothing, One Paved Court.                                                                                     

Group Exhibitions include: Margins, Tregony Contemporary, June 2024. British Art Fair 2024. London Art Fair 2021-25. Olympia Art and Antiques Fair and Affordable Art Fairs 2019-24. Multiple exhibitions with Kittoe Contemporary, Multiple exhibitions with Tregony Contemporary. The Lynn Painter Stainers Painting Prize Exhibition. Browse and Darby.  From David Bomberg to Paula Rego: The London Group at Southampton City Art Gallery. I see you here, Project Gallery. Alicia David Contemporary Art. London Now, Creative Cities Collection, Barbican Centre. Sarah Myerscough Fine Art. Approaches to Landscape, Medici Gallery. Threadneedle Painting Prize, Mall Galleries. Small is Beautiful, Flowers East.                                                                      

Collections: Worked owned by numerous public collections including The Royal Marsden Hospital London, University College London and Paintings in Hospitals. Private collections include Bayer plc., Dumfries House, Capsticks, Topland Group, Canary Wharf Group plc., Unilever plc., KPMG,