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Norwood Flynn Gallery
Artist: David Leonard
Dallas Study #4
2008
Oil on Board
12 x 18 inches
Estimated Retail Value: $600
The primary subjects of my paintings are 21st century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The essence of our way of life can been seen in our never ending attempt to subdue our environment. It is not my intention to either glorify or to condemn this objective, but to invite contemplation and leave judgment up to the viewer. I'm always looking for places where the man-made environment inundates the natural. I paint this in a way where subtle abstraction disassociates elements from the environment, creating an oscillation view of the natural and the fabricated. The paintings are meant to be ambiguous - they can be seen as an indictment of human waste and contemporary alienation, or, simultaneously, they can be understood as silent tributes to the fundamental tools of our society that we all too often ignore. One might ask why I paint these things rather than document them with photographs - I believe painting, because of its deliberateness, serves purposes that photography cannot. My paintings take a long time to produce and in this way they parallel and underscore the deliberateness with which our machinery is build into the landscape. They care a culmination rather than a moment - a "long look" at our technology and legacy.
Courtesy of the artist.
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