New York artist Daniel Horowitz, an award-winning illustrator and art director whose artworks have been commissioned by various clients such as BusinessWeek and Reebok, sought to prove to himself that his creations could extend beyond the use of technology; a medium that is used in profound excess in the present day art world. A little over a year ago, Horowitz sat down at his work desk, armed with pen and pencil, and wondered what he could make of a blank piece of paper; a clean canvas waiting to be dirtied with smudges and lines, connecting into a unified form. With no particular purpose or immediate direction, he began to draw. Slowly, the singular piece of paper turned into two, then 30, until he had 365 different drawings lying before him amounting to 365 days of artistic excavation. After working for a decade solely as a digital illustrator for various publications and galleries, he was determined to create commotion in other artistic mediums. The result was an extraordinary series worth exploring.

Originally skeptical that his self-imposed project would be inferior to his popular digital illustrations, Horowitz began his work with no intention of exposing the series to the public. Yet as the illustrious outlines of human forms came to life before his eyes, his curiosity for the evanescent process urged him to continue his exploration and the creation of his blog emerged, where fans could view his circadian progress. In fact, they were the sole solicitors who urged him to delve deeper into his artistic ventures, intrigued with his mission of exploring unfamiliar, yet fundamental territory as he silently agreed that he was on the verge of creating something exquisite that shouldn’t be shuffled into the dark corridors of a desk drawer, but illuminated by the imagination of thousands of fans. Taking 20 minutes to an hour each day, he worked scrupulously. Nevertheless, time intervals weren’t problematic for him; it was the various creative stages that rendered some difficulties.

“Regardless, you need to get one drawing done a day,” he says of the rhythm and promise that ensued once the series ignited. “[But] it’s the thinking about what to do that takes time.”

Remaining adamant in feeding his growing curiosity, Horowitz, unlike many artists who observe their surroundings in hope of unveiling common societal misconceptions through their artwork, humbly wanted to prove his creativity through simplistic assistance; a short-lived revolution against the tainted marks of the digital age.

A self-proclaimed problem-solver, he explains, “The fact that it has no digital component makes it different. As time went on with the series, I became more confident, and my approach was more precise.”

Today, the elaborate daily analog paintings, drawings and collages, are fanned amongst other artistic endeavors at The Invisible Dog Art Center gallery in Brooklyn, New York in an exhibit reasonably titled 365, which opened as part of the Armory Arts Week in early March.

The series, elaborately entwined with zany absurdity, interlaces humans and animals fashioning a different realm of unfamiliar abnormalities. With original displays of women donning puffy green dresses with gorillas for heads and monstrous spiders pouring out of seemingly petite cars, he stays genuine to his usual eccentric style.

Horowitz explains, “I am happy it draws a response. I am putting together allegories of human beings. They are allegories of human beings behaving and misbehaving and sometimes animals behaving as human beings.”

Although his concepts are impractical and each piece of art is merely titled with the day it was created, he does not deviate from detail. For Horowitz, re-figuring mundane concepts into amusing, yet eerie oddity is further unfettered by the use of realistic color. Drawing of the Day 355 literally depicts an explosion of visually catchy and dense shades of yellow, orange, and blue, the color radiating through the imagery of a shadowed gorilla-like figure sitting amidst the scenery of the typical 1950s American home.

“I love color. I suppose it is a fine dance as to how and when to use it,” Horowitz says. “Just as the power of negative space is as important to the images, color, and how it relates to its surroundings, is equally important.”

Horowitz was born into the art scene. His creative mentality and refreshing perspective of human and animal behavior saw the development from an unconventional childhood, fostered by his mother, an architect, and his father, a photographer. They immersed him into the world of art through countless occasions of wandering around art museums that encompassed classical art, yet Horowitz’s already steadfast fascination irrevocably arose when he stumbled into the passageways of modern art, an area where he spent the bulk of his childhood.

“I was very fortunate to be introduced to art at a young age,” he says, reminiscent of his beginnings. “I knew the modern art galleries of The Museum of Modern Art by heart by the time I was five.”

But this was only the artistic inauguration for Horowitz. After visiting edgy institutions throughout his childhood, the Art Center College of Design graduate’s artistic character was intensified and affected by his world travels amongst which were the cities of Europe such as London, Warsaw, Vienna and Barcelona, as well as Cuba.

“I would say my time in Eastern Europe has had the greatest impact on my work. However, my favorite place in recent times that I have had the pleasure of visiting was certainly Cuba – and not just Havana. I have never been to a place so visually stunning that you could literally close your eyes, and shoot in any which direction, and each shot is a masterpiece.”

It was right after he earned his degree in 2000 that he moved from the collegiate atmosphere of Pasadena, California to Warsaw, Poland and began teaching at the Academy of Art and New Media, discovering what the world had to offer to him as a young artist and vice versa. And learn he did as he was introduced to some of the most highly acclaimed graphic artists deriving from the Polish Poster School (a distinctive artistic movement and style that began in Poland in the 1950s and ended in the 1980s — deriving from political struggles — which significantly influenced international development of graphic design through its combination of the complex beauty of painting and the succinct, metaphorical vigor of posters) with whom he had the good fortune to work with.

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