David Ivan Clark is originally from the plains of Western Canada, David graduated from Princeton University in 1983 and studied architecture at the Oregon School of Design from 1987 to 1989. With the exception of a brief apprenticeship with Jonathan Barbieri, Oaxaca, Mexico, he is self-taught as a painter and draftsman.
In addition to solo and group exhibitions around the Bay Area, his work has been chosen by curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Denver Art Museum for inclusion in shows at various venues in the western states. It is held in over one hundred private, public and corporate collections throughout the United States and Canada.
Artist Statement
The vast, silent plains of Western Canada, where David Ivan Clark was born and raised, inform both his life and work. As a child, Clark felt the numinous in the natural world and yearns for this connection still. Fast-forward to the post-modern age, which asks us to view our surroundings not as independent from ourselves, but as a personal construct flung outward: we no longer inhabit the world but rather our own shimmering projections. From this vantage, the existence of the natural sanctuary Clark inhabited as a child is called into question. His work explores this dilemma.