Daniel Lint is a Maui based collage artist and graphic designer, whose work is an exploration of balance, shape, color, texture and form. His collages stand as Thought-Forms - visible traces of the sounds of everyday life. 

We asked him some questions about how his visual obsessions began.

What was your first memory of making artwork, and could you describe what you made?

My first memory of making art would have to be some macaroni art and using mediums of that nature in pre-school. I don’t recall exactly what I made though, I think it was a landscape or a house or something with some crayon scribbles on it.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up across the Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington in a small town called Poulsbo till I was eighteen. I moved to San Francisco for a year and then went to Seattle where I lived up until June 2017 until I moved to Maui, Hawaii, where I’m currently located.

 “I bounce back and forth from organic free flowing pieces to more intricate dimensional pieces as a way to express the ups and downs life throws at me.”

How do you think this impacted on your art work? Growing up there definitely had a big part in my focus on creativity and using my imagination. With a population of around 7,000 there’s not as many things to do that a bigger city has to offer, especially for youth. I had to channel a lot of what my imagination would come up with and go that route and doing whatever was free to little cost. I spent a lot of time outdoors playing outside and found myself drawing a lot. This is also where I picked up skateboarding when I twelve years old. Once that happened my whole view of the world opened up.

I wanted to see what else was out there and I was able to do that through skating. Skating allowed me to travel across the country and is where a lot of my real interest in art came from. All the graphics on the boards and layouts in the magazines definitely intrigued me and I wanted to soak up and learn as much as I could.
I became burnt out on always creating on the computer and started collaging as a way to do something with my hands, have more freedom and have a tangible final piece.

︎Holistically, 2017


How would you describe the artwork you make now?




I would say my work is a study of color, motion and dimension influenced by the current emotional states I’m in. I bounce back and forth from organic free flowing pieces to more intricate dimensional pieces as a way to express the ups and downs life throws at me.
I’m always just trying to create whatever is in my head at that given moment in the best visual representation I can, and I try to do that daily.

︎Clamor, 2017

What are you trying to communicate by doing this?To be honest I’m not trying to communicate anything in specific, other than a visual representation of my own feeling and growth. None of the pieces have a hidden meaning; they are what they are. It’s great when people find their own meanings or interpretations in my work and share their take with me though. I’ve had a few people who became emotional or see objects in certain pieces that I didn’t intend or see myself — so that’s a really cool feeling to be able to evoke something out of somebody and see new things in my work. But I guess that’s the purpose of art.
 


Apart from skating, what would you say your main influences have been as you've grown as an artist?





Music has and always will be a big part of my life. It definitely helps me to see certain colours and textures.
My friends for continuing to inspire me creatively. My fiancé Bo for being an amazing mother to our son and loving me like no other. My son Harper for inspiring me to look at everything for the first time again. And life in general — shit gets hectic sometimes but persevering through experiences enables growth which allows you to tap into your full potential in whatever you do.

“Music has and always will be a big part of my life. It definitely helps me to see certain colours and textures.”