We spoke with David Anderson, our October exhibiting artist, about his upcoming exhibition.
What is your background/the background of your group? (How long have you been a practicing professional, when was the group founded, previous projects etc.)
My initial formal art training outside of school began with art classes on a Saturday morning which were at the old Chesterfield Art College, Hasland when I was 1213 years old. From finishing school, I then completed a 2-year Art Foundation course at the (then new) Chesterfield College of Art and Design, Sheffield Road. My Fine Art degree course was completed at Leicester Polytechnic and following on from this I worked as a Studio Assistant for:
Brendon Atkinson/Larry Rivers (Pop artist)
Al Held (Hard-Edge artist)
Cora Cohen (Abstract Expressionist artist}
Stephen Meuller (Color-field artist)
Exhibitions assistant and gallery photographer for:
Max Protech Gallery
Cable Gallery
From working for these artists and galleries, I gained ‘real world’ experience of being a professional artist.
What is the name of the exhibition?
‘2,020 to 2,022 Metallic Diamonds’
Metallic Diamond Paintings: 2020 to 2022.
(Life during Lockdown).
What materials have you used to create the work in the exhibition?
These paintings use:
Square canvases of various sizes.
Metallic Acrylic paints.
Mars Black Acrylic paint.
What have you taken inspiration from to create this exhibition?
As the Exhibition information notes, this exhibition is of paintings completed over ‘Life during Lockdown’.
2020, I was working in Malta and Covid arrived the 3rd week of my time there. By the 4th week there was talk of the airport closing and during this week my job disappeared, the company went into hibernation so it was time to leave.
Returning to the UK and with Lockdown imminent, I bought a number of canvases and paint for priming them. I had metallic paints from a previous Installation project (see Artist’s Statement for my Exhibition 2, December ’23) so decided to keep working with these as had been interesting from the previous installation. Lockdown arrived a week later and this is what I had to work with. The previous installation used the square as its basic building block so I decided to carry on with the square working with square canvases.
What can people expect when they come to your exhibition?
In this exhibition every painting in it is metallic, something I have never seen before in an exhibition space. My previous installation was all metallic also though the pieces in this were not paintings.
Along with this, these are all ‘Constructed Paintings’. Constructed Paintings are made by assembling a number of canvases, from 2 up to 8 or 9 together to form a painting structure that is not a single flat surface. I have been working with these for a number of years.
Many people have a creative passion but don’t ever think they will take it further. What helped you to decide that you were going to build on your passion?
Never really thought about this or it was never an item, more of a done deal for me. I used to win painting prizes at primary school along with Blue Peter badges (still have them) for art ideas sent into the programme. The art room was always my favourite place at school and during my second secondary school I was allowed to work in the art room during lunch time and after school along with winning art prizes from the school (1972 to 1974). After leaving school and returning to the first question, Chesterfield College of Art and Design exposed me to and broadened my world of art.
My degree course was what the college course was preparing me for and the next step. Taking the Fine Art degree where I was also a Stowell’s Trophy prize-winner (1978) also increased my knowledge, skills and confidence to be an artist.
Upon completion of my degree course, I moved into working as a studio assistant/gallery assistant while developing my own paintings and looking for exhibition opportunities. I also won a New York State Art Competition (1991) with the painting ‘on tour’, as exhibited at universities throughout New York State, Texas and California for nine months.
As an ‘emerging artist’ I started with group shows then solo exhibitions and later, larger installations also.
What made you chose West Studios when deciding where you should exhibit your work?
During the lockdown I did some web searches for exhibition spaces and galleries in cities around Chesterfield along with general searches of the East Midlands, looking for possible opportunities for after the pandemic. My art does not work in traditional portrait/landscape settings or in ‘gallery shops’. More flexible spaces suit my art better and after visiting West Studios during 2022, this space and the feel of it turned out to be here in Chesterfield and a suitable space for my work.