Gallery: David L. Friend
Artist Statement
All I am as an artist has come through the combination of encounters with life’s experiences and my personal search for ways to relate them through art. So as a self-taught artist, I have used many methods and mediums, finding that the process of painting works very well for me. I use mostly oil and acrylic paints in my work and like them both but have become especially enchanted with the properties of acrylics, which provide an excellent vehicle to create and express my ideas quickly and efficiently on canvas.
Over the years, I have found happiness in painting traditional scenes of the peaceful and the tranquil from life and my imagination. I’ve painted mostly for myself, my friends and family. Those subjects, I choose to paint, were portrayals of a simpler life that I wanted to be real.
More recently, upheavals to my life and the world around me have caused a revisiting of how I relate to everything in the world. This, as well as age, has created a change of perspective for me, which also brings a wider and more complex understanding of this world as it really is. More than this it has brought me to a more distinctive and stronger artistic voice, which can be seen in the paintings I am now making.
With each new painting, I continue to gain a heightened appreciation for the dynamic interplay of shapes and colors and how they affect our perceptions of everything in the visible world. I see my art as having become more obscure than obvious and gaining power from the abstraction of forms that play well together in various ways. All this, I hope, will broaden the artistic voice of my work and speak fluidly to many people.
The outcome of all this has been that the paintings become composed of complex elements and often contain relentless motion that require second looks to more fully appreciate what I have painted. These paintings may provide you with dizzying journeys to that place but I hope all the elements together will provide an invitation that spark your imagination and draw you, allowing your curiosity to take you on a journey that creates a personal connection to my art.
About the Artist
As far back as I can remember, I have always expressed myself artistically and the process of creating things graphically has always been important to me. I discovered the world of oil painting when I was 11 years old and have never lost my love for painting pictures.
While I have loved and practiced drawing and painting almost all of my life, I spent much of my adult life working as an architectural drafter to pay the bills and support my family. That worked well … up until a few years ago when I was laid off due to the economy and needed to shift gears and find something else to devote my energy to.
Today, I’m a self taught artist living in Washington State just north of Seattle with my wife and family. I am empowered by a love of art and a desire to express my artistic vision using my business called “Art and Imagination of David L Friend” as a tool to introduce and sell my artwork. I have a studio located in my home where I paint work that is commissioned as well as work on developing other painting projects that are of interest and importance to me.
My artistic viewpoint finds expression through the use of acrylic and oil paints with which I create unique abstract images on canvas and offer them to those who appreciate them.
I welcome your interest in what I do and look for the opportunity for you to have something I have painted or to create a work of unique and special importance to you.
I am determined to paint with the independent brush of imagination spreading the colors of creativity upon the canvases of opportunity.
Find or contact David at www.DavidLFriend.com