328 NW BRoadway PORTLAND, OREGON 269.598.1777
PAINTING WITH PAPER
After opening my studio in 2014, I quickly found myself unable to afford the art medium I had set out to explore. Instead of oil paint, I decided to use resourced paper to create large scale works on canvas. I immediately loved this new medium and am still excited by the discoveries I find working with it.
To create my collages, I intuitively cut words and images from magazines to create a beautiful scene taken with my camera. I carefully build my pallet of colors and apply this paper palette to a canvas or board using an acrylic gloss medium and finish each piece with an UVLC stabilizing varnish.
I enjoy using sharp geometric shapes to create the classic organic beauty of nature and therefore use mostly triangles and rectangles throughout each piece. With collage, I can create a fabric with the paper that tells a story or conveys a deeper meaning in the subject. The focus of my work is to bring awareness to the interconnectedness of everything and how this is beautiful.
First Thursday Grand Opening June 5, 2014
ZONOVERGOTEN - First Thursday July 3, 2014
Pieced Together - First Thursday September 4, 2014
Illustration - First Thursday October 2, 2014
Abstract Expressionism, First Thursday July 2, 2015
DDProuty67@gmail.com
David’s creative energy is free flowing and comes from a subconsciousness within his inner core. He believes art should always make you feel something - Something that is unexpected; Something that is raw and natural.
When the paintings are finished, they remind David of places around him that are intermixed with his innermost and subliminal thoughts. His style is “Expressionism" and/or "Abstract Expressionism". David has always been drawn to and inspired by the early work of Jackson Pollock, the expressive self-portraits of Frida Kahlo, and the strangeness of Dali. He also draws upon the figurative modernism of Chagall, as well as, Rothko’s affinity for colors that express energy and ecstasy.
There is fine line between consciousness and our subconsciousness. The images that David created in this series are inspired by the reflections in his mind between these two worlds. Although we all live in both worlds, we are unaware of how they work together to create our reality. The question that David is exploring in this series is, “What happens to our perception at the moment our subconscious momentarily spills over into our day to day reality?”
The thin line in David’s work represents the division between a dichotomy: land & water, night & day, reality & fantasy, and our conscious and subconscious worlds. These dichotomies merge for only a moment, a split second, and at that juncture the reflection is purely magical, yet non-tangible.
My earliest memories of art happened before I was in school. When my grandmother and I would decide to have an adventure, we would pack a lunch and ride the streetcar to the end of the line and walk forever to the river to skip rocks and sit in the shade of a huge rock cliff. We’d look at the Indian rock paintings that covered the cliff and decide what stories the Indians were telling. I would fix the paintings with my color crayons so the stories made more sense, or just to make them look better. My grandmother assumed it was fine for me to fix the paintings because she was at least half an Indian. When we weren’t able to go on adventures, I would fix the pictures in my coloring books, adding objects to the pictures with a black pen and coloring them in.
My art is not inspired by a specific thing or person or act. Rather, when I initially commence painting, it is like striking the first note or chord of a jazz composition that leads me to compose the next, and the next. I paint, and painting inspires my recollection of reality, which is a continuous memory of what was; an internal autobiographical movie. Where some are moved to create concrete things like animals or mountains, my personal expression of beauty is exhibited through my work, with lines, colors, shapes and textures.
From the time I was a child drawing with crayons on a rock wall until now, I have been exploring the world of art in all of its forms. After an initial art class, which I took with my mother at the age of 15, I went on to formally study art at Oregon State. During my time there, I earned a full scholarship to Brooklyn School of Art in New York, where I continued to expand my knowledge of art history and principles of design. I went on to place my paintings and sculptures in select collections in several countries. While traveling the world, I experienced beauty in everything: the symbolism of a sculpture in Indonesia and the elegance of a flower in Thailand. The extravagance of architecture in Turkey and Iran. They inspired me to rise to higher standards in my own expression.
After gaining years of experience and knowledge through extensive travel and countless hours of experimentation, I am finally in a place where I feel ready to show my work once again.