David Levy

This is an facinating new approach that I am exploring. Through the process of examining aspects of the world from nature to architecture to strong emotions, I am reinterpreting those into a beautiful abstract composition of curvilinear lines, unique free-form shapes, and arresting coloration. To add a deeper sense of visual interest, in most cases, I am air brushing shadow detail that delivers a curious illusion of depth and elevation. The final product, no matter what the subject, is transformed into an abstracted thing of beauty.

This is a new concept that I am very excited about and has generated strong interest by art lovers that have seen the prototypes. The primary idea is to create the illusion that an actual paint roller (that I attach to the painting) successfully painted a complex original creation in a single stroke.

My practice is all about unique ideas and concepts. As Marcel Duchamp said, "I'm interested in ideas, not merely in visual products". I have a constant stream of ideas. I work on sketches to develop those ideas further. Then, once satisfied, I produce one or more iterations of those ideas to explore where that may take me. My "String Theory" series is an example of an idea that I carried out into a complete series. The paintings that appear in this series are seeds that may blossom into a full series or at the very least a family of works based on the initial idea or concept.

Exploring the beautiful lines and curves of the alphabet and envisioning the letters as shapes without meaning. That idea enables the creative mind to see certain letter juxtaposition in creating strong visuals and color fields.

Edges & Shadows is a new series exploring the idea of light, lines, objects and surface, each defined elegantly by its shadow in space.

We all have been in situations where we have strong emotions resulting from personal experiences yet society norms or simple good behavior blocks the expression of those feelings. This series allows me to express these ideas in a fresh way. My paintings in this series enable the viewer peek into my feelings through openings that reveal fragments of letters that spell the emotion I have felt.

This series is comprised of bold hard-edge color fields of an array of shapes that take on arresting angles and cast beautiful shadows. The juxtaposition of the color field shapes and the resulting shadows form eye-catching compositions that are modern and fresh.

There is magic in creating negative space. Negative space is the area around or within subjects or areas of interest. In the case this series, I am exploring overlapping objects and the negative space developed via relationships of those objects along with intentionally targeted negative space created by openings within these objects. So in a sense, the opening becomes both positive and negative space.

This series touches on strong emotions I feel about specific times and events in my life. I used acrylics with string throughout and in some works incorporated collage and other materials. All these works are painted on custom birch cradles that I constructed. These paintings work beautifully in a grouping of 2 or 3 or they each have the strength to be hung on their own with other paintings or on a unique wall space.

Each piece in this series represents an emotion or thought I had at the time. I am inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly. His pure clean lines, gorgeous color fields and minimal simplicity is captivating. These paintings are my ideas expressed using a similar toolbox. These paintings work beautifully in a grouping of 2 or 3 or they each can be hung with other paintings or on a unique wall space.

This experimental series explores how minimal geometric shapes in vivid colors can take on the emotions and behavior of people. These paintings both hide and appear in effect using shadow detail. This simplistic technique provides both solidarity and presence while at the same time each struggles with being bashful and introverted. One can wonder...are they coming forward to join us or are they retreating.

In the early 1900's in Russia, Kazimir Malevich created a movement called Suprematism. This was a radical development in abstract art with the focus on liberating art from the representational world using geometric shapes, mainly circles, squares and rectangles. The essence was to focus on color and shape to create the sensation of movement in space. The paintings were executed on white or lightly shaded backgrounds to enhance the goal of floating elements. My take on revisiting and exploring this movement is to represent the geometric shapes as solid objects defined by their shadows cast on an abstract background to deliver via illusion, the Suprematist's idea of floating objects.

The works I'm presenting in this series are explorations using physical elements along with painting, in order to express what is on my mind.

Inspired by well know artists like Mel Bochner, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein and others who incorporated words into their paintings, I have taken the idea of four letter words and created a pop-art interpretation not unlike creative art from the 60's & 70's. The words I've chosen are active words that convey feelings and emotions. The word dominates the surface and is painted in a 3D fashion enabling the sensation of depth. This series also features the use of Artificial Intelligence in the background images.

I'm integrating top line ideas that I have sketched out digitally with AI tools to create final sketches that become a blend of collage, paint and special effects using airbrushing. This is a totally new approach incorporation AI as an extension of my creative process.