I met Daniel at the Berlin Art Institute in 2022. He was often late to gallery visits, but never short of insight - always asking why, always challenging the work before us with a kind of hungry curiosity. His presence sparked dialogue that lingered long after the exhibitions ended. It wasn’t just art to him; it was a language, a movement, a question that never settled.
Daniel creates with his whole body either flinging jars of paint at canvas-covered walls or spinning a lime green rock from the overhead lights in our industrial Weissensee studio space. He doesn’t just make art. He lives inside it.
Berlin was a turning point for both of us. That time cracked something open in me. It redefined how I saw my practice and life itself. I learned that community, connection, and ancestry are the bones that shape us, no matter how dark or light the history may be. But more on that another time.
On Friday, August 1st, 2025 - Daniel and I reunited. We caught up on life, on loss, on what it means to make with time as a boundary.
Daniel spoke about his nomadic life - how since childhood, he’s existed in constant motion. Never quite belonging, always searching for a place to know and to claim. That longing shaped him. Place, he said, influences identity, and when you’re always in-between, you become both an outsider and observer with a constant ache to belong.
His return to Santiago after Berlin was meant to be a homecoming. Instead, he fell ill. A diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, inherited but unexpected in his 30s, brought him close to death. He met himself again - with more depth and confronted his relationship with mortality, with God, with the fragility of the body that contains a resilient mind.
Hospitalised and weak, he couldn’t paint. He became a shell of his former self, watching his physical strength fade while his mind burned bright with resistance and ideas. We spoke about what it means when your body refuses to meet your creative desires, how serious we both once took our practices - to the point where the joy, the play, the experimentation, all got buried under the weight of expectation and outcome.
Sometimes, life demands tenderness when we’ve only offered ourselves pressure.
Artists have a strange and beautiful way of transmitting experience. They hold mirrors to the world and become conduits for change, transformation, and collective memory.
As we spoke, Daniel’s physical environment shifted - flashing lights danced across his face, rhythmic and unpredictable. It felt serendipitous, as if the world itself wanted to join our conversation.
When the traveling case finally reached him, he reviewed what Katie had created before him. He was deeply moved by her work and the vulnerability she shared. The case was delayed to reach him, but he didn’t wait. He created within the unknown. The delay inspired him. There was power in not seeing, in working from instinct. When he opened the case, he was surprised by how complete it all felt, like a mission across continents - one that allowed art to gather, greet, and speak to itself.
Art is not a science. It’s intuition, blind faith, and trust in the invisible. You don’t always know what you’re doing, but you make choices anyway. That, too, is power.
Daniel’s contribution came at a transitional moment as he is navigating between Santiago and Spain, between past and present. His work now speaks of diaspora, of self-recognition, of becoming. It's situated squarely in the in-between: the space where identity is carved, not inherited.
At one point, he turned the conversation to me and asked, “How are you feeling with this project?” It gave me pause. I shared that when I first birthed this project, I wrestled with how much of myself should be part of it. Should I only ideate, or also create? Should I document my own experience? Or just hold space for others?
I’ve been managing logistics while acting as a quiet steward - supporting artists, navigating expectations, and letting go of control as the case travelled across borders. And in that letting go, I lost a part of myself too. People have asked to join the project, but it’s already set. There’s a magic in what’s already unfolding - a dance of interpretations, a safe space for creation that is ever-evolving.
Daniel and I spoke about how my practice has shifted over the years. I began as an oil painter, a world I still love and return to in private. But there was a time when I chased the art market, painting what I knew would sell. It’s taken longer for me to arrive at something authentic as I existed solely in survival mode as the result of a turbulent upbringing. But now I feel myself stepping into purpose - with clarity, with calm, with intention.
The Royal College of Art was instrumental in that transformation. It gave me a space to explore, to ask questions about identity, disability, technology, and belonging. I processed through making. I reached connection through curiosity. It was the first time I truly felt held as I navigated the quiet, strange realities of living. Like any institution, there are plenty of opportunities for changes but more on that another time.
Daniel, too, is now navigating the pressure of the “painter” identity. He’s letting go of where the work hangs or what his name means, and choosing instead a life of authenticity, with art at the center. We are both sitting in the shift - of the world, of ourselves.
Art mirrors struggle. It makes visible the invisible. We spoke about how art can shift humanity - it is, in its purest form, a duty of care. A reclaiming of agency. That is what this project is about: by artists, for artists. Across borders. Beyond institutions.
The curation of this project was intentional. A range of mediums. A constellation of deeply committed artists. I hoped they would try new things, speak through new forms, and surprise themselves. I hoped their work would speak to each other - across time, language, and place.
As Daniel said near the end of our conversation:
“It’s so beautiful, so diverse, that I could not be more thrilled… The only thing I can promise is that the thing is real.”
And that’s enough.