A deep melancholia fills Edrick Daniel’s Biorama, his latest exhibition of acrylic paintings that continue the surreal representation of the solitary figure in various emotional states, this time using clear resin instead of the usual canvas.

Painting in several layers of resin, transparency and depth in this new take on the diorama deepens the already enigmatic quality of Daniel’s characters, where the symbolic fuses seamlessly with the body of the individual, a shell unfolding to reveal layers of the drama.

Within the drama is the charged atmosphere of the familiar—loneliness, insecurity, anguish. The innocent fool transformed into a full deck of strangers inhabiting a place both real and ethereal. These are our boxed nightmares, their manifold dimensions rendered clear in the light of day.

Working with resin, a toxic and difficult substance, Daniel seems to meditate on imagination as the only possible narrative of escape from the haunts of the mundane and the everyday. Coming to terms with this new material is like coming to the terms with life and its challenges. It is a fastidious process of creating a single figure that is both archetypal and personal.

In the end, everything is smoothed out, our own wondering faces reflected on the surface of Daniel’s new canvas. Perhaps it is only a prelude, the artist setting himself to break free from his own conventions, from his own cocoon.