ABOUT THE ARTIST

I obtained my Diploma in Fine Arts at the Toronto School of Art (TSA) in 1997 at the age of 50. At TSA, I studied drawing, painting and sculpture, art history and contemporary issues, and I worked with the human figure as my main vocabulary.

In 2002, I started painting landscapes, beginning with a trip to the North Saskatchewan River. That same year, my wife and I moved to the Bancroft area. At first I painted the York and Madawaska Rivers; then, I discovered the woodland beauty waiting at our door step. For eight years I painted the woods we lived in. Trees emerge from the earth and decay back into it. The seasons change. Light enters the forest canopy and scatters on the leaves and ground. The breeze animates everything. These rhythms are timeless and they enchant me. I engaged them in my paintings in a flowing union of woodland forms and colours.

In late 2010 and through 2011, having relocated for a year to Halifax, I began making figurative and portrait work again. At the same time, I continued painting landscapes. As of January 2012, I am living and working in Toronto. I have added “urbanscapes” to my repertoire. I will be returning to the Bancroft area in June 2013 to be enchanted once again with the land and trees there.

I am represented by Koyman Galleries (Ottawa), artzila.com and Canvas Gallery (Toronto) and Soho Myriad (Atlanta and London UK). My work can be found in private and corporate collections in Canada, the United States and England.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Whether in my landscapes, urbanscapes or in my paintings of people my practice is founded on seeing. What I see is energy: energy conveyed in light and shadow, colour, form and visual rhythm. I aim to convey to my viewer my experience of that energy, and to recreate its nature and presence.

I want my paintings to have a striking immediacy to them. My process incorporates an interpretation of light and colour relationships that is often exaggerated. I have heard my work described as “contemporary impressionism”. My process is an evolving dialogue with my subject; I apply paint and ideas in layers, allowing myself to explore and be led by my insights as they deepen.

http://www.davidmcintoshstudio.com