Be it a large-scale concrete sculpture or a delicate carbon-transfer drawing, a Daniel Templeman work invites us to question its construction, physicality, finish and ultimately what it reveals or conceals. This conundrum gives his work an illusive quality; it places the viewer within this dilemma. His work is as much about what it does as what it is; the artwork incites a perceptional gap, to be completed by the viewer.

Templeman developed an early appreciation of the illusory quality of veneers, laminates and polishes and saw potential parallels with Minimalism, and continues to explore the possibility of an illusory quality coexisting with a literalist approach, oscillating between hard edge reality and perceptual trickery.