| ARTISTS |
David Morgan
Born in 1979 in Menden, Germany, David was educated initially at a preparatory school in Bagshot and from there to Bradfield College, Berkshire, taking his GCSEs in 1993 and A Levels in 1997. His studies, including modern languages, English Literature and Art, led to a Foundation Course at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in Farnham where in 2001 he took his Degree being awarded a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. Since then a career as an artist has been interspaced by necessary periods of commercial employment, including a year working in a picture framer’s workshop, thereby learning techniques that are an invaluable aid to the many practical problems an artist may face.
While still at college, and in the short time since, David’s paintings have been shown in a number of small exhibitions local to Farnham and Guildford, the last occasion being a shared exhibition at the Harvey Road Gallery in Guildford in the autumn of last year. It was from this that his first major commission came about - eighteen large abstract paintings for The Vineyard at Stockcross.
Though the painting submitted for his A-Level examination is actually a charming representation of an English summer’s day, a game of cricket in the background, certain elements of it are indicative of a movement towards abstraction. This intuitive response is also discernable in the Thesis presented for his Degree where, though the choice of subject is portraiture, both painted and photographic, he analyses the work of several renowned exponents of the genre pointing to how these artists often avoid the problem of capturing ‘personality’ by presenting it as an abstract. Not far below the surface of a well researched dissertation and in its conclusion there is a sense of the abstract to which he appears drawn psychologically: thus it is in this vein of pure painting that David now works. It is his own statement that best described what he sets out to achieve:-
“I am an intuitive painter, a direct painter, I present no formal solutions. My paintings do not attempt to capture images that are visually recognisable. In each piece I return to the fundamentals of painting: form, colour and composition. I use these elements to reflect my own aesthetic beliefs. Essentially, the subject of each painting is the painting itself’.
Written by Noël Napier-Ford
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