Love & Caffeine

This has been such a wonderful journey!

Merchandise from this collection is available at the Starbucks Reserve Chicago Roastery 646 N Michigan Ave

Chicago, IL 60611

What Is It About Portraits?

I make a lot of portraits in the grand scheme of all of the work I create. So what is it really that pulls me to them? That's something I have been asked countless times. Whether they are candid, posed, caught off guard, or selfies, there's something special about portraits that always brings me joy. 

There is an endless beauty to the ways a face can express. Since I have been in Miami i have been capturing portraits of all of the awesome and willing people I meet here. As a part of my practice I am creating a documentary library of my world through these portraits. There is an immedite intimacy that a portrait creates. That intimacy is a driving force for me. After the initial experience and capture of the image I spend tons of time looking and then choosing which ones will become Paintings or drawings. Which will remain as photographs or wich may spark something entirely new. 

Sometimes I choose and sometimes I'm making portraits when I'm not even trying to.

The conversations and connections are often what moves me to choose a subject. When I decide to work in color, that too is often influenced by our interaction. It's like a never-ending fountain of ideas that continues to feed itself. Come have a drink with me!

Miami Residency

It has been entirely too long since I have maintained this blog. Well, there is no time like the present to get back on board! So here goes. 

I was selected as one of a dozen visual and performing artists to come to Miami from Chicago for an immersive, three-week residency program. Mana Contemporary created a residency program between its Chicago and Miami campuses. While I'm here I plan to soak in the culture as much as the sun.

From the moment I landed, it was like a sensory overload. The light is different, the air is different, the sounds and smells are all different. For the three weeks, I have decided to let myself be open. Open to whatever may come. New people, new experiences, new inspirations. It's been a week plus a bit and I just wanted to share a little of what has come of it. 

Me being all gestural and explanatory during a studio visit. 

More Updates to come......

Where Is David's Art?

So this has been a rather eventful start to the summer. I currently have work about the city in 3 spaces you will be able to go out and see. People always ask "Where can I see your work" Well here you go.....

If It Don't Fit Don't Force It (A Meditation)

My Solo Show At William Hill Gallery will be open until July 24th 

Gallery Hours, Saturday and Sunday: 11 a.m.  to   6 p.m. 

6442 S.Dorchester Ave
Chicago, IL  60637
(312) 351- 0573

"The Art of Blackness" 2015 Exhibition will be open until July 31st
Harrington College of Design
200 West Madison
Chicago, IL 60606

"Aesthetics of Wellness" A group show at Woman Made Gallery where I am in the company of 5 amazing artists will be up through August 20th.

Gallery Hours are W-F 11am-6p Saturday & Sunday 12-4pm 
685 N. Milwaukee Ave. 
Chicago, IL 60642

Easy Like Sunday Morning My Ass

I have been up since 6am prepping for a full day!  Coffee Coffee Coffeeeeeeeeee 

                                                            My Agenda

Final Selections for My solo Exhibit on June 20th for which I have done little or no promotion (stop slacking David) It will be held at the William Hill Gallery  6442 South Dorchester Ave. Chicago IL.

Photo shoot for secret collaborative surprize for a show coming up in July and the a full evening of support for a dear friend stepping into a new place in thier life. By the end of this day I will Have runn around for 16hrs and shall collapse upon the floor like a sack of potatoes.  I would show you what that looks like but I have never actually taken a picture of a sack of potatoes so instead I will share one of my new monotyps from my series "Sticks and Stones" 

Sticks and Stones #1  

So Sporadic

My blog posts have been so inconsistent but still I persevere. Instagram and facebook are full of regular almost daily posts. This blog on the other hand........

"When There Are No Words" Charcoal 22"x22"

Since last I posted I've had two exhibitions that were a great success. Thanks to all that were there in person and in spirit. Now I am preparing work for one show in May and three shows in June, creating opportunities for July and August.  

Ha! May has come and gone since I started the draft for this post! Ok so seriously heres the catch up! Three shows this June, two set for July and one for August and major stuff after that. I hope that was mildly descriptive LOL

Since Last I posted

The Last Blog Post was on Valentines day......

I don't think I mentioned it at all. 

It's Hard To Protect What Needs To Be Exposed To Be Experienced                     Digital Painting 

Anyways....

I've been prepping for two major shows coming in March and of course as always I am down to the wire. Uploading files that need to be printed and hung in the gallery in the next 48 hours. All new photography work for the first show.  

James Nelson and I have been In the studio grinding out work in prep for our collaborative show on 3/13/15 Milk Honey Bread & Butter. Progress has been amazing. 

TWO HANDS ONE BODY OF WORK!!!  

The year of collaboration is off to a beautiful start!!! So much more to come down the line. 

Caveman Feminist

Recently in a chance meeting with who turned out to be a great friend I found myself discussing my personal perspective as it intersects with feminism. A great conversation with Writer Jasmin Newman resulted in the article below. My art came up but this was my first time seeing the way I see the world outside of art as a subject for writing. Feeling good!

While we have all moved on emotionally and intellectually from caveman days, our biological make up has not. Perhaps it will benefit the communication between men and women if we can at least accept that men are often acting, thinking, and experiencing what is natural for themselves as men. And for women it’s worth noting that this is the same part of the brain that tells us to avoid a fight, protect our loved ones, experience emotions and feed ourselves when they are hungry. I don’t think we really want to lose that.

Here's a link to the full article. 

http://relatingtomen.com/blog/caveman-feminist/ 

The New Site Is Live!!!

It took about 2 months of tinkering and working on computers where I could find them, but I finally got it ready to launch.

I've had davidanthonyart.com since around 2009. When I started It i was in a place focused more on my photography for a few different reasons. In 2012 I began to paint again and realised soon after that I would eventually need to completely rehaul my website. I drug my feet and did what I could to piece together something that focused on all of what I do as an artist, but a site designed for photographers just didnt meet my needs. So this new year I decided It was time to make the change. She's finally ready for the world. Of course there will be regular tweaks and updates as time passes. I finally have a proper blog built into the site so I can share a little more behind the curtain in a way thats more organized and easier to enjoy for the people that follow my work.  

So here goes!!! As always I am open to suggestions about what could make it better and information about anything my absentmindedness may have caused me to miss.  

Thanks again to everyone who finds beauty and purpose in what I share! 

Side note, The shop is up and running too so feel free to buy some art ;) 

The Year of Collaboration

2015 is the year of collaboration. As a part of both my artistic and personal growth I have set on a path of collaboration. I have long seen the value of shared creativity, of shared ideas, of shared experience. Having spent so many years creating my work in solitude I felt it was time to tap into somthing greater than myself. I have always been the kind of person that plays well with others. Lately I have been told repeatedly that one of my gifts is to let people be themselves. to be comfortable in who they are in my presence. I want to create spaces where artists have the ability to let go of all of the inhibitions about their  creative process and others perceptions of the inclinatins they have during that process. 

Just do that shit!

Words I have repeated several times as I venture into the first of these collaborations with artist James Nelson. We are in the process of creating an entire body of collaborative work for an exhibition.

"Milk Honey Bread & Butter" 

There are more collaborations on the horizon! Keep an eye out. 

Inspiration Is In The Doing

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.” 
― Chuck Close

These words have resonated with me for years. As an artist I work daily. Fortunately my creative process is multifaceted so I have lots of options when it comes to what to do. Both to my benifit and frustration I often challenge myself to complete amounts of work just at the edges of what feels comfortably managable. The most recent of these was 100 8x10 monotypes in a week. Not just any week, but a week in my already insanely busy life. Interested in developing a new process I had been tinkering with I used this challenge toforce me to grow and to master the nuance of this new method. I succeeded!

24 of 102 monotypes created in my challange

Having succesfully taken a leap in understanding this process I am now ready to make it bigger. Thus far everything has been 8x10 or smaller.  Research is underway to combat size limitations. I love a good challange!

Words and Images

I have always been interested in the phenomenon of memes. It feels like they're everywhere. The idea occurred to me to play with pairing words with my images ages ago. It took me some time to get to a result I was happy with. So here goes nothing. I am entering into a space between fine art and the Internet meme.  

Neither poetry nor prose. These are just thoughts and feelings I have had or have heard that speak to me. 

They are silly and serious, romantic and sad, seriously and whimsical. They are like me. Some of them are me lol. 

Pure Form

Prepping for the first 4 Of A Kind show of 2015 "Pure Form". I decided I would do all photo work for this one. I have yet to do an all photography contribution for a show.  I've had a self portrait of some sort in every show since I started showing work again in 2013 so I decided to promise myself to continue to do that.  

Incendiary 12"x12" Chromogenic print. 

The self portrait is a staple in the art world. Most artists in one way or another create self portraits throughout thier carreers. The opportunity to reflect on the self, to really dig deep and see within as well as to analyze the surface of me has so much potential. Sometimes I can feel vain and others I am picking at the self conscious bits of me. 

I've been going through a lot of changes. The attempt to manifest those shifts visually has been a real challenge. 

"Through The Changes" 4"x6" Chromogenic Print