Visionary artist Daniel Gonçalves creates intricate geometric ink-on-paper drawings, meditative mandalas with complex hallucinatory resonant signatures, that act as multi-dimensional portals to other realms.

“I use archetypes from our collective unconsciousness. I hope to convey purity, accuracy, perfection, balance, and forward that energy to the viewers, based on elements that are common to all.” - DG

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WAL x Daniel Gonçalves

Interview:

How do you prepare to work?

I've been drawing since I was a child, but it became a healing process after I had a breakdown and when I went back to it, it was like I was in need for air. After that, I felt in need to somehow control the urges and learn to create a process. For me this means working mostly overnight with all the instruments in the right place facing the blank paper...then I am off to a dance…one shape leads to another in a game of symmetry/asymmetry that ends usually when there’s no more room left in the paper. I don't control the final result.

Where do you think your ideas and visions come from?

I don't make drawings ahead of the drawing itself. I do not plan or preview what is going to happen. Usually I discover the drawing while I am doing it. It’s a trance. In some cases, especially on the big drawings, I only see what’s there when I lay back to look at it.

Do you see your work as a form of mediumship or channelling?

I am for sure channelling something, I just don't know what it is. I don't know what to call this energetic field or give it a name, but it feels like a spirit guiding my hand.

What influences and inspires your art?

Everything and anything that I see as authentic and genuine.

What is your relationship to the sacred?

My drawings are my experience with the sacred. Some people meditate...I make drawings. There's always present in me the idea of moving forward to the next one with a sense of knowledge and renewed energy.

How does geometry inform your work?

The drawings were more organic initially. Geometry came in with my idea of making it perfect. Although the drawings seem highly structured, they result from an intuitive process, like living between two worlds: an ambivalence between the symmetric and asymmetric and organic and rigid geometry.

What do you want people to feel from your art?

A sense of peace and fulfilment. That we can all look forward to something beautiful and magic.

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