Photography of Daniel Dover's Illustration | credit & copyright: www.doverd.com
Visual artist Daniel Dover enters a transformative new phase with upcoming solo exhibitions, large-scale murals, and animated media projects. Known for merging fine art with narrative storytelling, his work explores human connection, urban space, and emotional depth. From Tel Aviv to New York, Dover’s expanding practice reflects both artistic ambition and cross-medium mastery. His latest exhibition, “Outtakes,” opens July 11 at The Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn.
Visual artist Daniel Dover is entering an exciting and expansive new phase in his creative career, with several major projects currently in motion - across fine art, large-scale murals, and animated storytelling.
Best known for an evocative body of work that merges fine art sensibilities with dynamic storytelling, Daniel Dover is preparing for a series of upcoming solo exhibitions in New York and beyond. These new exhibitions will showcase Dover’s continued exploration of form, connection, and everyday life, reflecting both a curiosity about human experience and his ever-evolving engagement with public space and visual narrative.
At the same time, Dover is launching a new cycle of mural work, with several large-scale projects slated to appear across New York City in the coming months. Building on the momentum of earlier public artworks, including prominent murals across Tel Aviv and a celebrated animated installation at Tel Aviv City Hall. These new pieces will bring Daniel’s bold visual language into direct dialogue with the city’s communities and streetscape.
Building on recent animation work, Dover is also continuing to develop visual content and direction for several documentary projects currently in production, contributing both animated sequences and conceptual design. These collaborations represent a natural extension of Dover’s illustrative storytelling, layering his distinct aesthetic into nonfiction formats.
Throughout his career, Daniel Dover has built a broad and diverse presence across public spaces and galleries in Israel, Europe, and New York. His work has drawn wide recognition for its rich interplay of personal symbolism and intrinsic narrative storytelling, often weaving together remarkable experiences, underlying tensions and emotional nuance. In addition to gallery exhibitions, Dover’s site-specific installations have garnered critical attention, including a celebrated series of plastic animal sculpture sprawling across recycling collection sites in Israel. A valued commission at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, and the animated installation at the entrance of Tel-Aviv City Hall, which continues to resonate as a public landmark.
This next part of Daniel Dover’s career builds on these achievements with a renewed sense of scale, ambition, and cross-medium fluency. His ability to move fluidly between the intimate space of animation and the monumental scale of muralism has become a defining trait, as has Dover’s instinct for narrative structures - whether told through a canvas, a wall, or the unfolding movement of animation.
As Daniel Dover enters a pivotal moment in his artistic trajectory—marked by ambitious exhibitions, monumental murals, and compelling work in animated media—his multidisciplinary fluency and narrative instinct continue to distinguish his practice. Bridging personal expression with collaborative vision, his work invites viewers into spaces where form, emotion, and story converge. To further explore the philosophies and processes shaping this next chapter, we sat down with Dover for an exclusive, in-depth conversation. The following interview offers rare insight into the artist’s evolving methodology, his approach to medium and scale, and the deeper creative intentions that inform his growing body of work.
Photography of Daniel Dover's Illustration | credit & copyright: www.doverd.com
Daniel Dover Q&A
Dover reflects on the nuances of collaboration, the interplay between sound and image, and the importance of maintaining flexibility across mediums. Whether working on a towering public mural or a delicate hand-drawn animation, Dover approaches each project with an instinct for narrative and a quiet commitment to emotional authenticity. Here, he discusses his evolving practice, the value of cross-disciplinary experimentation, and what drives his work forward in this next ambitious chapter.
1.How do you handle collaboration in your animation projects, especially when working with a team? How does that dynamic differ from working alone on a painting or illustration?
Daniel Dover: When involved in animation projects that aren’t my own, I’m usually not the one coming up with the concept. I focus more on helping shape how it looks and moves, and how to support and present everything in the best suitable way. It’s more about working with others and figuring out how to make the idea work.
2.Do you see a clear boundary between your personal work and your commissioned or collaborative projects?
Daniel Dover: There’s a difference, but it’s not always that strict or distinct. With collaborative or commissioned projects, I’m usually responding to a goal or brief, trying to support an existing idea. But I think both sides feed each other in useful ways.
3.What role does sound, and music play in your animated works? Do you find that sound influences the visual design and animation, or is it something you focus on later in the process?
Daniel Dover: Sound plays a very big part for me, and I usually have a certain tone or rhythm in mind while animating, even in less frequent cases where the actual sound comes later. It helps shape how the scene moves and feels. A certain sound will determine how I design a scene or time a movement and helps guide the whole feel of the piece from early on.
4.Is there a particular subject or theme that you feel best expresses itself across these mediums? How does your approach change from one medium to the next?
Daniel Dover: I tend to focus a lot on characters and their environments, and find that I’m drawn to creating moments that, although absurd and exaggerated - feel genuine and lived-in. In painting, I focus more on the mood of the scene and how the composition can tell a story on its own. In illustration, it’s more about capturing a specific moment or expression. With animation it’s about bringing those characters and scenes to life and exploring how they evolve. The core idea stays the same though.
5.How do you approach color in your work across painting, illustration, and animation? Are there any common threads that tie these mediums together for you?
Daniel Dover: I tend to use color in a more subtle, often muted way, focusing on creating a mood rather than using bright or intense hues. In painting, I might play with softer or more surreal tones to set a certain atmosphere. In illustration I try to keep things simple, using basic colors to keep the focus clear. I guess animation falls somewhere in the middle.
6.Do you always have a hidden message within your art?
Daniel Dover: I hope so, though occasionally it’s also hidden from me at the time, which is why I really appreciate it when people point them out.
7.Do you ever mix traditional painting techniques with animation? If so, what are some examples, and how does it change the overall aesthetic?
Daniel Dover: Yes, I use traditional hand-painted techniques for both the character drawings and backgrounds. I feel this gives the animation a more natural and personal feel overall, and also keeps me more engaged with the process, as I'd rather work with physical materials over a screen.
8.Are there any techniques or skills you have learned from one medium that you have been able to apply to others?
Daniel Dover: Drawing skills from illustration come in very handy in both painting and animation. And studying how movement works in animation helps a lot with character design and posing for illustrations. They all kind of feed into each other.
9.In your view, what’s the value of experimenting with different mediums? Do you think it’s essential for an artist to keep evolving, or is mastery in one medium just as important?
Daniel Dover: For me it’s more about opening new ways of thinking and approaches. I don’t necessarily see it as a need to constantly evolve, but more to expand on ideas or different moods.
10.What drew you to work on documentary projects in the past, and what are you looking forward to in future ones?
Daniel Dover: The initial appeal is naturally the stories themselves, and I’m very interested in how animation can bring a different layer to non-fiction storytelling. It's always a new challenge, and I enjoy exploring these real-life narratives with a certain personal take.
11.How are you approaching the animation process for these new documentaries, and what’s exciting about it for you?
Daniel Dover: It’s very different each time and depends on what is asked for, but I enjoy figuring out how the animation can best serve the overall project, enhancing the narrative without overshadowing the core idea. It is a mix of experimenting and finding the right approach, and really focusing on how the animation can add depth to each story while also staying true to the original intent.
12.What’s driving your approach to your upcoming mural projects?
Daniel Dover: For the most part, I only prepare rough sketches for mural work, usually just general poses or the basic idea. I try to stay as flexible as possible to make everything fit the environment and not be too constrained by the exact mood or original composition.
13.How do you manage the challenges of working on such a large scale, as opposed to illustration and animation?
Daniel Dover: Aside from the challenge of standing for hours on scaffolds, it’s mostly quite the same as all my other work in terms of approach. I generally find walls to be more forgiving than other mediums, but these upcoming projects will be a new challenge in terms of scale and structure complexity.
To follow Daniel Dover’s ongoing work across painting, muralism, and animated media, visit
www.DoverD.com, for the latest news on exhibitions, public art projects, and collaborative film work.
His multidisciplinary practice continues to expand across platforms and geographies, merging emotional depth with visual precision in ways that resonate far beyond the frame or wall. This feature offers a rare look into the philosophies and processes shaping Dover’s creative evolution—from solitary studio moments to large-scale civic engagement.
“Outtakes” by Daniel Dover opens July 11th
The Greenpoint Gallery
390 McGuinness Blvd., Brooklyn, NY 11222
Further announcements regarding new works, mural unveilings, and media collaborations will be released in the coming months, as Dover's next chapter continues to unfold with intention, scale, and narrative force.
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