MICHAEL DAVID
American, b. 1954
“David may be the most innovative master of immediate surface since the Abstract Expressionists. He has acknowledged his debt to Abstract Expressionism, but he has transformed it. Where the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the forties and fifties seem like modem cave paintings, as their crude, unfocused, often meandering, turbulent painterliness suggests, and as such to resonate prehistory, David seems to tum the cave into a temple .. ”
– Donald Kuspit
BIOGRAPHY
Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Yaddo and Edward Albee Fellow, Michael David has been exhibiting internationally since 1981, first with the historical Sidney Janis and then with M. Knoedler & Co. Exhibiting widely throughout the United States for 40 years, he has been the subject of much historical and curatorial acclaim. His recent solo show “The Mirror Stage” was held at Johnson Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, GA.
His work is included in many prominent private collections and the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Margulies Collection in Miami and the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk NY, and was the subject of a one-person exhibition at Aspen Museum of Art.
Abstract painter Michael David is best known for his use of encaustic, a technique that incorporates heated beeswax and pigment. Considered an inheritor of Abstract Expressionism, David’s abstract work primarily centers on the use of a densely layered surface to facilitate a direct and immediate spiritual experience. He often incorporates religious iconography and symbolism, art historical themes such as the nude, and contemporary politics into his paintings resulting in a critical dialogue between the layered abstraction of the surface and the integrated representational imagery.
Over the last decade, David established the Fine Arts Workshop in Atlanta and the Yellow Chair Salon, working with artists on an immersive one-on-one basis, helping to develop their voice and professional practices, finding exhibition opportunities and taking their individual expressions to the next level. His mentorship practice expanded to include residencies and workshops in Dallas, TX, Truro, MA and Brooklyn, NY.
He has taught painting at Princeton, was head of the Graduate Painting Department at SCAD in Atlanta, and lectured and served as keynote speaker at many universities and art centers across the United States. Over the last eight years David has established, directed and curated two of the most successful galleries in Brooklyn: Life On Mars and M. David & Co.