(b. 1974, Pittsburgh, United States)
American–Argentine artist. Lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina and The Hague, Netherlands.
Dan Hallman is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, painting, text, and alternative photographic processes. He received his BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in 1999.
Hallman began his career as a freelance editorial portrait photographer in New York and London (1999–2017), contributing to publications including Vanity Fair, Glamour, and Departures. While maintaining a high-profile editorial and commercial practice, he simultaneously developed a private body of abstract and conceptual work. He has since shifted his focus entirely to his fine art practice.
His ongoing series Textural integrates language and material experimentation. Working with canvas, oil, acrylic, enamel, ink, spray paint, paper, plastic, and cyanotype, Hallman treats words and short phrases as visual structures rather than declarative statements. The works operate as open systems in which meaning is activated by the viewer. Humor, ambiguity, and restraint coexist, inviting reflection and personal interpretation.
Within his cyanotype works, Hallman operates in two modes. Some pieces present text alone—poetic, spare, and self-effacing—allowing language to occupy the full blue field. Others combine his original photographs with a structured graphic arrangement of words, including works from The End series. Image and text are exposed together through the cyanotype process, chemically bound by light rather than digitally layered. Tonal shifts and softened edges introduce instability, holding tension between what is seen and what is read.
In his contemporary photographic work, Hallman investigates the abstraction of time and perception. His large-scale images are created entirely in-camera, without digital manipulation or AI intervention. Often described as kinetic or gestural, the photographs render fleeting movement tangible, prioritising sensation over subject. From a distance, the works often appear painterly; up close, they resist fixed interpretation.
Hallman has exhibited internationally, including Art Rotterdam (2025, 2026) with Spazio Nuovo; Arte Ayuda (2026), Buenos Aires; Lille Art Up (2025); WTC The Hague Gallery (2024); Unseen Amsterdam (2024); Dan Hallman: The Dutch Years, Acme Studios, The Hague (2024); Rotterdam Photo (2024); Centro Cultural Borges (2019); and the Museum of the City of New York (2002). His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of New York.