Artist Statement

My creations explore the visual room between the hirsute armpits of lowrider excess and the depilated features of Pixar media. Along the axis of those polarized worlds is my squatter’s paradise of irony, visual parody and cognitive dissonance. I strive to provoke grimaces and smirks as levers to lift the window blinds on the bleak landscape of our post-democratic society. My influences include Walt Kelly, Fides Testi, Edward Hopper and Dora Maar. I use airbrushes and acrylic paint as primary tools, supplemented by gilding and grinding with electric rotary bits.

Biography

Born and raised in Oakland, California, David was the equivalent of a pet rock in a family of accomplished professional musicians. Early and unsuccessful tussles with a piano led him to happier experiences in high school and college athletics. His first memory of personal interest in artistic expression came with a surreptitious visit to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley at age 13, when he stuck a copy of the Berkeley Barb under his t-shirt while exiting Cody’s Books. To his surprise, he later found himself reading—without distraction— a poem by Allen Ginsberg sandwiched between ads for sex and nude pictures of women. David subsequently took a 49-year hiatus from creative endeavors to absorb the genteel wisdom of Charles Bukowski, the visual precision of Jackson Pollock, and the lighthearted melodies of Lou Reed’s Lulu. During that time David moved to Seattle, filched a college degree, and bellied up to the public trough as a middle school educator long enough to be pensioned off. His purchase of an airbrush the following day opened the trap door to a new career that now endangers the sensibilities of an unsuspecting public.