Alex Asher Daniel (born May 14, 1973) is an American contemporary artist and composer. He uses a broad variety of materials including painting,

sound installations Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

, photography, drawing and film. A Los Angeles native, he has since lived and worked between London, New York City, and the Bay Area.

Personal life

Born and raised in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, Daniel received his

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

degree from the

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, and was a fixture in the

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

underground Hip-Hop scene in the 1990s. In college Daniel was inspired to dive deeper into his studies of

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

and the

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...

by his then English teacher

beat poet The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...

Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous ...

Career

As a visual artist Daniel has worked primarily in painting, portraiture, drawing, and collage. Inspired by nature, mysticism and the human form, Daniel's work explores meaning within the unseen space around his subjects and their relationship between the inner and outer world. As a

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

ist Daniel works specifically from live sittings spending time assessing the

aura Aura most commonly refers to: * Aura (paranormal), a field of luminous multicolored radiation around a person or object * Aura (symptom), a symptom experienced before a migraine or seizure Aura may also refer to: Places Extraterrestrial * 1488 ...

of the individual subject and incorporating the colors into his work. His works reside in numerous collections worldwide including the

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery is a historic art museum between 7th, 9th, F, and G Streets NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Founded in 1962 and opened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections f ...

and has painted notable figures in contemporary culture including

Lenny Kravitz Leonard Albert Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter. His style incorporates elements of rock, blues, soul, R&B, funk, jazz, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, pop and folk. Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Roc ...

Charles Rangel Charles Bernard Rangel (, ; born June 11, 1930) is an American politician who was a U.S. representative for districts in New York from 1971 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second-longest serving incumbent member of the Ho ...

Jon Batiste Jonathan Michael Batiste (born November 11, 1986) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, bandleader, and television personality. He has recorded and performed with artists in various genres of music (Stevie Wonder, Prince, Willie Nelson, ...

Tarana Burke Tarana Burke (born September 12, 1973) is an American activist from The Bronx, New York, who started the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began using MeToo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves. Over a decade late ...

Phylicia Rashad Phylicia Rashad ( ) (née Ayers-Allen; born June 19, 1948) is an American actress, singer and director who is dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She is best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom ''The Cosby S ...

, and Dame Miriam Rothschild. As a music producer and composer he has collaborated and worked in various genres including

Ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

Rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

, R&B and

Electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

and remixed work for artists such as Maxwell, Warpaint, and UNKLE. He has frequently worked in

musique concrete Musique is the French word for music. Musique may also refer to: Music *Musique (disco band), a 1970s studio band produced by Patrick Adams *Musique, a British dance act consisting of Moussa Clarke and Nick Hanson best known for their 2001 song ...

and

sound installation Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

using found sounds to compose works. In 2019 he released the

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

album ''Anima Mundi'' based on the five classical elements with proceeds of the album sales going to Winona Laduke's

Honor the Earth Honor the Earth is a non-profit organization founded to raise awareness and financial support for Indigenous environmental justice. The organization was founded by Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers after meeting Winona LaDuke, and after consu ...

for Indigenous

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

. Daniel has produced tracks for various members of the hip hop collective

Hieroglyphics Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

and released his 2021 album ''Book of Spells'' on the

Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings is an Oakland, California-based, independent hip hop record label founded and owned by underground hip hop collective, the Hieroglyphics. The label was created by the collective in 1995 to publish and market the ...

label. In 2013 he composed the original score and executive produced the Shomari Smith documentary '' Til Infinity: The Souls of Mischief''. The film reflects on the 20-year anniversary of the band Souls of Mischief's debut album ''

93 'til Infinity ''93 'til Infinity'' is the debut studio album by American hip-hop group Souls of Mischief. It was released on February 13, 1993 on the Jive label. Composition The sound of ''93 'til Infinity'' is characteristic of the distinct style explored b ...

'' and includes over 50 interviews with prominent MCs, DJs, and producers of the era. In 2021 he released his first full-length album, titled ''Book of Spells'', celebrating the power of nature and the

divine feminine A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of ...

featuring an all female line-up of guest musicians. The album includes the single and video "Lover's Prayer" featuring Doris Pearson of the 1980s pop R&B band

Five Star Five Star (also styled as 5 Star) are a British pop group, formed in 1983 and comprising siblings Stedman, Lorraine, Denise, Doris and Delroy Pearson. Between 1985 and 1988, Five Star had four top 20 albums and 15 top 40 singles in the UK ...

and remixes by

Stuart Matthewman Stuart Colin Matthewman (born 18 August 1960), also known as Cottonbelly, is an English songwriter, record producer and musician. With Sade Adu, Paul S. Denman, and Andrew Hale, he gained worldwide fame as the guitarist/saxophonist of the band Sa ...

Sade Sade may refer to: People * Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine * Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band * Sade Baderinwa (born 1969), WAB ...

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

, and Breakbeat Lou. His self-produced remix and video "Dakini" (God's Eye Mix) features

Phesto Damani Thompson, known by the stage names, Phesto and Phesto Dee (born April 29, 1974), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the founding four members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief, an ...

and

Tajai Tajai Massey, known by the stage name Tajai (born April 21, 1975), is an American rapper and producer. He is one of the four founding members of the Oakland, California-based underground hip hop group Souls of Mischief and, with Souls of Misch ...

Souls of Mischief Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai. History East Oakland nat ...

, and

Sunspot Jonz Corey Johnson, better known by his stage name Sunspot Jonz, is a rapper from Oakland, California. He is a founding member of Living Legends, a conglomerate of underground hip hop artists from California. He is also one half of Mystik Journeymen ...

Living Legends Living Legend(s) may refer to: Film and television * "The Living Legend", a 1978 episode of ''Battlestar Galactica'' * "Living Legend" (''CSI''), a 2006 episode of ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' * ''Living Legend'' (audio drama), an audio d ...

Discography

Albums

EPs

Singles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Alex Asher Hip hop groups from California Musical groups from Oakland, California American portrait artists American experimental composers American multimedia artists Ambient composers American male composers 21st-century American painters American contemporary artists American interdisciplinary artists Artists from Los Angeles 1973 births Living people