David Lester

I am an artist living in Vancouver, Canada. My poster MALACHI (18 x 28") will be exhibited at the 2014 Whitney Biennial in New York. I play guitar in the underground rock duo MECCA NORMAL. I paint and draw cartoons and illustrations for magazines. I am also the creator of the "Inspired Agitators" poster series. My t-shirt designs include "Actually, I like crap." My graphic novel THE LISTENER was published in 2011 by Arbeiter Ring Publishing and went into a second printing. I am currently making a graphic novel on the life of anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman. A MECCA NORMAL album was released in 2014 on M'Lady's Records. In 2016: Mecca Normal open for The Julie Ruin on their Pacific Northwest tour.

In 2017, Drawn To Change: Graphic Histories of Working Class Struggle (with David Lester’s The Battle of Ballantyne Pier) won the $10,000 Wilson Prize for the best book that “succeeds in making Canadian historical scholarship accessible to a wide and transnational audience” The book also won the Canadian Historical Association’s Public History Prize.

David Lester (artist page):


Emma Goldman (graphic novel):


The Listener (graphic novel):

Franklin University (Columbus, OH) used one of my paintings (Conflict #1) for a course on Global Cultures. 2005* The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) used 2 of my paintings (Conflict #1 and #2) in a course called Conflict Resolution. The Network for East-West Women-Poland (an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations) used my Conflict #1 painting on in article on Crimes Against Women. The University of Colorado (Boulder) used my painting Conflict #2 on their webpage for a course on Social Problems.

Whitney Museum of American Art (2014 Whitney Biennial); Metrospace, Sonic Landscapes, East Lansing, MI; OK. Quoi?! Contemporary Arts Festival, Struts Gallery, Sackville, NB; +5 Gallery, Paper Politics, Brooklyn, NY; Phinney Center Gallery, Seattle, WA; Bookmobile (travelled North America); Art in the Air Audio Art Festival, Sackville, NB; Happy Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia.