We were lucky to catch up with Daniel Tofach recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Daniel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I believe risk-taking is inherent in the act of creating art. Art makes a statement that is always open to interpretation, regardless of the intention of the artist. It serves as a record of the current state of the world. In this way, art is political; it has the power to both unite and alienate its viewers depending on their response to the work. In creating art, we risk inviting unwanted criticism which, for many artists, directly influences our understanding of our self-worth. Negative critique can be crippling, whereas positive reception becomes addictive (I’m certainly not immune to either)! On one hand, I’ve had teary-eyed viewers explain why my paintings resonate with them, and on the other, I’ve been told that my work has “no soul”. With this in mind, a level of risk is always involved when choosing to share your work with others. I experienced this first-hand over the past year as my practice has grown and new opportunities presented themselves. My artist collective, Odyssey Immersive Arts, secured a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Bancroft that explored various states of mental health, recovery (or lack thereof), and acceptance. The experience placed me in a more vulnerable situation than I anticipated, as our team drove three hours North in the dead of winter to attend a reception we assumed would have little to no audience. But upon our arrival, we were shocked to be greeted by a full house, media coverage, and a microphone. I’ve never been required to address a crowd full of strangers regarding the nature of my work or its intended statement, but speaking to something so personal as mental health was a risk that paid off. It facilitated a larger conversation among our audience, fostered a sense of community, and allowed for one-on-one moments of genuine connection with viewers who previously felt alone in their circumstances. Conversely, we were also selected as vendors in the One Of A Kind Show—the largest craft show in North America. As a faithful patron for over a decade, this was a bucket list item for me, but not without a level of financial risk given the vendor fee, booth design, and increased need for inventory. Although I’m grateful to have participated (and land a business deal within the corporate gift-giving industry as a result), the risk didn’t pay off quite how I hoped. If nothing else, I’ve learned to mitigate my expectations. In this case, the exhibition proved more rewarding than I could have imagined, whereas the craft show shook my confidence in a way I didn’t expect. Both were valuable experiences in my growth as an artist and entrepreneur, and neither came without a willingness to take risks.
Daniel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The grandson of noted artist and Auschwitz survivor, Josef Youdowitch, I am a multidisciplinary, 2SLGBTQIA+ artist and theatre-maker specializing in digital art, site-specificity, and audience-immersion. As a classically trained artist working primarily in new media, I apply traditional, painterly techniques to create original digital imagery—ultimately fusing my classical background with more modern composition methods. Inspired by cinematography, my work employs a trompe-l’oeil approach to texture and brushstrokes, resulting in digital paintings that appear at once hyperrealistic and impressionistic. With this in mind, my subject matter oscillates between conventional landscapes and experimental portraiture, relying heavily on exaggerated lighting to both convey and illicit emotion or memory. From somber seascapes to luminous skies, my landscapes capture the impermanence and reverence of nature’s most fleeting moments, whereas my portraiture explores uncomfortable narratives surrounding the lived experiences of marginalized people. In this way, nature serves as a metaphor for resilience while portraiture reveals the commonality of compromising circumstance or injustice (an aspect of my family history that appears throughout my work, particularly as it relates to the experiences of women, BIPOC, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities). Featured by the Agnes Jamieson Gallery, the Art Gallery of Bancroft, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Campbell House Museum, Gallery 1313, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and Spadina Museum: Historic House & Gardens, my work is heavily influenced by my family legacy and personal experiences in the wilderness of Northern Ontario.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Although being an artist is its own reward, there’s something unique about sharing my work with a brand-new audience. When I began marketing myself on social media through @danieltofach_art, I assumed my sole audience would be made up of friends and family. That certainly wasn’t the case! At a precarious stage in my career, I started receiving comments, likes, and follows from strangers who took an interest in my point of view, subject matter, and execution—and this small bit of validation was enough to push me to continue sharing my work. After a decade of stifling my creativity due to the mistaken belief that my perspective had little value, someone outside my immediate community had taken notice. That’s not to say that I don’t respect the opinions of those closest to me, but it’s a distinct privilege to witness a stranger’s enthusiasm for my work. In this case, my humble following is indicative of a larger network of support comprised mostly of people I’ve never met. Although it may seem unimpressive to some, this modest audience encouraged and inspired me to create more work in a single year than I had in the past two decades—and with each new piece, I learned something valuable about my capacity for resiliency and creativity. That feeling is only magnified when sharing my art in person at markets and events. Likes and follows can’t compare to the satisfaction that comes from building a connection with a customer (or even just a passerby) who has fallen in love with something I’ve created. I was pleasantly surprised when a little girl felt a strong connection to a stormy seascape of mine (perhaps my most melancholy piece), and asked her mother to buy it to hang in her bedroom. She will always stand out in my mind as one of my very first customers. As a passionate art collector myself, it’s rewarding when the tables are turned—to see someone treasure my work as deeply as I treasure my collection of other artists’ works on my walls at home. As a queer artist, I’m particularly moved by the response I’ve received from the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. In 2023, I was privileged to participate in Toronto’s Flamingo Market (an award-winning celebration of fellow queer artists, makers, and artisans), where I felt as though my work, perspective, and voice were valued and truly understood. I’m grateful to have not only made sales, but to have built connections with viewers who felt compelled to stop, admire, and share why my work affected them. There truly is no greater reward beyond the knowledge that someone has hung my work in their home—that they see it every day and feel something.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
As a graduate of OCADU (previously Ontario College of Art and Design), I found my professors’ attitudes toward art to be narrow and limiting. When I began university, my work was conceptual, explorative, and free, but this kind of individualism was actively discouraged. Rather than foster an environment where students could develop a sense of unique, personal style, we were admonished for work that fell outside the norm. By my final year, I had been so pushed and overly critiqued to the point of nearly failing that I realized I would have to adapt in order to graduate. To my professors’ delight, I pivoted from more experimental subject matter to traditional landscapes—and saw a dramatic improvement in my grades as a result. With the success of my thesis and the stylistic sacrifices I was forced to make, I graduated with high marks and very little passion. By compromising my artistic integrity to please a rigid system, I compromised my love of art altogether. In many ways, my professors robbed me of the childlike pleasure inherent in the act of creating, forcing me to meet their standard of representational art rather than empowering me to elevate the nonrepresentational style that came naturally to me. With this loss, I developed a poor sense of self-image as an artist, and went on to take a decade-long hiatus from painting. It wasn’t until I was trapped at home during the pandemic (when time away from work had long since lost its appeal and I had exhausted every streaming service available to me) that I was able to pick up a paintbrush without judging whatever came of it. I had been so trained to view my art as a product with a price tag that I was incapable of creating without asking the question, “who would buy this?” But after ten years and a global health crisis, I no longer cared. It took a decade to unlearn the rigid confines my professors forced me to operate within, and allow myself to rediscover both the joy in creating art and the freedom to explore a style that is uniquely me. I’m now privileged to be able to share that style with a broader audience, and to let go of the question that held me back for so long. These days, I don’t paint for anyone but myself. I’m no longer asking, “who would buy this?” Instead, I ask, “who needs this?” And the answer is always: “Me”.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @danieltofach_art