About
I’m Daniel, an Argentine botanical artist based in London. My creative practice moves between illustration, painting, and tattooing.
Tattooing is a central part of my practice and is informed by my background as a painter. Working directly on bodies has shaped my understanding of how people relate to the plants they choose to carry, and in turn how I look at and engage with plants myself.
Painting and illustration, by contrast, allow me to explore my own relationship with plants independently. These formats offer a different continuity and material presence. Much of this studio work is guided by site specific locations, sensory recollection, memory, visual documentation, and direct contact with plants.
Alongside my studio-based work, in recent years I’ve taken part in art residencies at Sarabande Foundation and Xenia Creative Retreat, where sustained guidance and support created the conditions to research, test, and refine the ideas that inform my work.
This time helped situate my practice within specific cultural, historical, and botanical lineages, drawing from Indigenous knowledge systems, animistic worldviews, Western scientific observation, and the legacy of British botanical expansion in shaping botanical illustration.
Born in Latin America and living in Europe for over a decade, that cultural tension continues to shape how I draw and represent plants.
Over time, this led to a series of in-person drawing workshops exploring botanical representation beyond hierarchical, detached observation, and moving toward a more reciprocal engagement in which plant agency is acknowledged, allowing plants to become active participants in the drawing process.
My first book, Beyond Botanical, translates the in-person workshops into a self-contained experience in print, offering space for drawing and journaling, and bringing together indoor and outdoor exercises that invite an attentive way of looking, subtly shifting what we consider, what we notice, and what we ultimately bring to the page.
Selected Articles
2025 Studio Snooper - Daniel the Gardener
2025 The Good the Bad and the Arty - Podcast
2024 Embodied Surfaces - Chelsea Physic Garden
2023 Plant Pop - Daniel the Gardener
2023 Tattoodo - Connecting with nature
2022 La Nación - Daniel the Gardener
