Michael David American, b. 1957

Overview
Michael David
No Regrets (for Johns and Mapplethorpe), 2024.

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 modern cave paintings, as their crude, unfocused, often meandering, turbulent painterliness suggests, and as such to resonate prehistory, David seems to turn the cave into a temple...  

 

- Donald Kuspit

Abstract painter Michael David is best known for his use of encaustic, a technique that incorporates heated beeswax and pigment, and mirrored glass. 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.
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Works
Biography
Michael David | Image Courtesy Astrid Dick
Michael David | Image Courtesy Astrid Dick
Michael David (b. 1957, Reno, NV) studied at Parsons School of Design and SUNY Fredonia. His work has been included in exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally from 1981 to the present day. Important group shows include Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America at the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, 1999; Jewish Themes: Contemporary American Artists at The Jewish Museum, New York, 1986; and The Golem at the Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany, 2016. Significant solo exhibitions of his work include Michael David: Cruciforms, Meredith Long and Company, Houston, 1998; Michael David: New Encaustic Paintings, Knoedler & Company, New York, 2000; and most recently The Mirror Stage, Johnson Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, 2022. His work is included in notable collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Texas; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. David lives and works between Brooklyn, NY, and Tivoli, NY.
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