Artist’s Statement:

'To me, painting is a balance between spontaneity and structure, order and chaos, action and stillness, through the slow, gradual process of building  paintings surface. In each painting I attempt to create its own ‘space’, made up of quiet collected moments, until the painting starts to emerge.

I start with small studies, often from sketchbooks, drawings and notes from landscapes or urban environments, perhaps echoing, water, interconnected patterns, between real and imaganied places. These are expressed through painted gestures or scratched/scumbled traces on a raw patch of canvas.

I use the processes of collage, gluing canvas fragments, old newspaper and sometimes wood and objects, to distort and disrupt the picture plain in an attempt to create a more dynamic and engaging visual experience, as the my brain tries to interpret the altered surface and picture plain. This mixed-media painting approach, is my attempt to manifest through a physical reality, ideas and concepts that echo nature and man made environments from everyday detitus we leave behind’

My next show in 2026 is entitled ‘Dirty, pretty, things’. Contact me for more my quarterly newsletter.

Education:

BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of East London, 1993 (study exchange Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California)

With a keen interest in art history and critical theory, his final dissertation was on the impact of collage, Dada and Kurt Schwitters on comtemporary art, an influence that still remains in his work.

PGCE (FE), University of Greenwich, London, 1994

Afrer teaching fine art full time in a number of art colleges, foundation courses and universities, from Berkshire School of Art & Design, Bath Spa University, Bath University, University of the Creative Arts, Farnham.

MA, Art and Ideology in Europe in the 20th Century, Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) 2000.

Research:

On the Masters programme, David persued an interest in the techniques and processes used by artists, especially in the modern era, with a keen focus on research into abstract painting that echoes his own practice, he wrote his thesis ‘Strategies for Painting: An investigation into the emergence of Zen Buddhism in New York after WW2 and its subsequent significance on the paintings of Robert Motherwell.’

This enabled specific research into the academic writings by the Japanese scolar Dr. Daisetz Suzuki and his influence on American painting through the practice of the artist Robert Motherwell, shaping what beacame known as Abstract Expressionism. The experimental nature of creativity and how artists innovate has been an ongoing area of interest David has maintained through his practice as an artist, academic research and fine art teaching.