Enrico David
“The starting point is always drawing, and I’m committed to representing the figure,” explains multidisciplinary artist Enrico David. His fantastical figures in various states of transience transition from paper to sculpture to painting to craft mediums such as the monumental embroidered portraits on sewn canvases for which he was first recognized in the 1990s. David appropriates elements from modernist design and contemporary culture in order to deal with issues of identity, queer politics, and complex emotional states. His human forms and fragmented body parts tow the line that separates representation from abstraction and the recognizable from the surreal. Faces emerge out of pod shapes, mummies crawl upside down, and vacuous faces dissolve into washes of brushed color. He describes his characters’ unsettling state as being, “on the brink of not being ready to be born.”
David’s work has been shown extensively at prestigious institutions such as the New Museum, UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Seattle Art Museum, ICA London, Tate Britain, and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others. He was a short-lister for the 2009 Turner Prize and a featured artist in “The Encyclopedic Palace,” curator Massimiliano Gioni’s critically acclaimed exhibition at the 2013 …
“The starting point is always drawing, and I’m committed to representing the figure,” explains multidisciplinary artist Enrico David. His fantastical figures in various states of transience transition from paper to sculpture to painting to craft mediums such as the monumental embroidered portraits on sewn canvases for which he was first recognized in the 1990s. David appropriates elements from modernist design and contemporary culture in order to deal with issues of identity, queer politics, and complex emotional states. His human forms and fragmented body parts tow the line that separates representation from abstraction and the recognizable from the surreal. Faces emerge out of pod shapes, mummies crawl upside down, and vacuous faces dissolve into washes of brushed color. He describes his characters’ unsettling state as being, “on the brink of not being ready to be born.”
David’s work has been shown extensively at prestigious institutions such as the New Museum, UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Seattle Art Museum, ICA London, Tate Britain, and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others. He was a short-lister for the 2009 Turner Prize and a featured artist in “The Encyclopedic Palace,” curator Massimiliano Gioni’s critically acclaimed exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
