Daniel O'Toole Modern Times

Daniel O’Toole’s New Gradient Works Provoke a Distortion of the Senses

“Can an image feel as though it has a sound frequency embedded in it?” That is the question animating Australian artist Daniel O’Toole’s latest exhibition at Modern Times, which closed this week in Melbourne. Called Cascade Rumble, and inspired by O’Toole’s own experience with synesthesia, the exhibition features works that are intended to fully engulf the viewer and to “hum a frequency of sound that resonates in the mind.” It’s of course a bit hard, if not impossible, to experience that sensorial dissipation when viewing the works on a screen, but we can still appreciate the artistry behind them. Mirrors, discretely placed inside aluminum and Perspex frames, allow each drenched gradient piece to reflect back on itself, which both blurs the line between artwork and frame and further increases the overall dynamic effect.