"In the Park with G.R." Painting

David Antonides

Born in Whitehorse, Yukon in 1958, David Antonides has studied in Europe, Canada and at the Art Students League of New York. His work is focused on water-based pigments - but in an approach that creates a weight and drama not normally associated with this typically transparent and fragile medium. Although he paints some studies in oil, the final works are completed in water media. The course of Davids work has lead to a focus on large format cityscapes and urban behavior. Water for me is a medium that intermediates the tangible with emotion and spirit. It flows between my intention and its own laws of nature and serendipity its a collaboration of sorts.Watercolour can make a strong statement and be monumental. It can have weight and gravity. I am searching to create a weight and drama not normally associated with this typically transparent and fragile medium. I want explore the contrast between the subtlety of complex color transitions and the strength of dense, robust marks. I believe that there is spirit and nature in the city. We can feel it, although we may not always know where to see it. Shapes and movement can express the essential experience we all innately attach to our familiar urban environment. I want to move away from rendering these environments, struggling not to describe them but to push the shapes far enough from the literal that -with the help of gallons of water - find what flows between objects, viewer and experience.