Daniel Wein
Daniel Wein was born in Melbourne, Australia to Australian and Swedish parents. Daniel spent his childhood years living between Australia, the United States, Sweden, and Israel. In 2009 Daniel moved with his family to live in Israel which is where he completed his final three years of secondary education.
Daniel enlisted into the military in 2012 and joined the 50th battalion of the Nahal brigade, where he trained as a long range sniper. During the July 2014 military operation "Protective Edge" Daniel endured a bullet wound and was injured during combat.
From the very first months and throughout the following year of physical rehabilitation Daniel started to paint for the first time in his life, unbeknownst to him how therapeutic it would be for his physical and psychological road to recovery.
In March 2015, Daniel won the "Colours in Barrels" Military, Police Force, and Border Patrol art competition for a one-year scholarship to study art in Tel Aviv. Daniel went on and continued to pursue his art, commencing study at the Bezalel School of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
In his early years of painting, Daniel's portrait paintings have a pronounced element of the emotional distress and pain that stamp, stain and spot the young faces leaving and returning from war.
Starting out with using pallet knives which cut dramatically into the flesh and paint of the canvas, while using strong and bold colours to portray these faces and emotional distresses, Daniel found he had a mechanism to deal with the difficult and distressing images that are stored within, and an artistic outlet to set them free.
Daniel has gone on to pursue the oil mediums as well as to work with the medium of plasticine for a more physical, hands on and fleshy tone for portraits. From the very beginning, Daniel was drawn to plasticine’s tactile, textured nature and the sense of curiosity it sparked whilst working with it.
Daniel is honoured to have been a finalist in the 2022 Darling Portrait Prize competition and feels privileged to have had his painting 'The Epitome of Hymie' hanging at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.