Don West

I am a Tucson painter whose work is continually evolving, moving between styles, approaches and mediums. My background in theater arts informs my work and process. Essentially, my paintings are about line, color, surface, composition, texture, space, place and beauty. Process, incident and intuition sustain me. I replace the figure or the subject with a brush mark or a series of brush marks, creating something tangible, timeless and universal. I may do this in any medium, using found objects or constructions, directly or through resist materials. Among things like subject or style, my work is about feeling, the art and the act of painting, itself. Mine is also free ranging, sometimes gestural, sometimes genre-crossing work about light, energy, mark making, relationship and the landscape of illusion.
I was born in Murray, Kentucky in 1946 but grew up in Detroit, Michigan. When I first saw the Van Gogh self portrait at the Detroit Institute of Art on a grade school field trip, I knew I’d become a painter. Drawing and painting since childhood, I studied painting as a post-graduate at the University of Arizona with Bruce McGrew, Charles Hall, and Philip Melton and at the Tucson Museum of Art School with Monica Jost and James Christop...

B.A. Michigan State University - Theater, minors: Art History, Painting 1969
Wayne State University - Hilberry Classic Repertory Theater Company 1970
M.F.A. The Ohio University - Theater Direction, Poetry 1973
Post-graduate Education:
Scientific Illustration U of A 1986 Painting TMA Art School 82-83
Studio Drawing TMA art school 1980 Drawing and Painting U of A 1979
Oil Painting with Alyssa Monks, New York Academy of Art 2011

2018
Tucson Museum of Art - one man plein air show
Four Corners Gallery 'Light and Shadow' Plein Air Show
Davis Dominguez Small Works Invitational

2017
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ "Small Works
Invitational"
2016
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ Three-Person Show (Nov 4 - December 10)
Acosta Strong Gallery Santa Fe Group Show - Small Oil Landscapes
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ "Small Works Invitational"
2015
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ "Small Works Invitational" (May-June)
2014
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ “Small Works Invitational” (May-June)
2013
Don West 35 Year Retrospective, Obsidian Gallery, Tucson, AZ. (May-June)
2013
Arizona Aqueous XXVII Tubac AZ Best of Show Award for “Antares” (Jan-Feb 2013) Obsidian Gallery Group show new work
2012
Davis Dominguez Gallery Tucson AZ “Small Works Invitational” (May-June)
Etherton Gallery - Temple of Music and Art Tucson AZ Juried Invitational “RED” (April-May)
Obsidian Gallery Tucson AZ Group show new work (April – June)
2011
Obsidian 128 Fine Art Gallery Tucson AZ Group show new work (March-Present)
2010 Obsidian 128 Fine Art Gallery Tucson AZ featured painter (March-Present) Solo Show (Oct-Nov 2010)
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