Artist Statment

My work is contemporary realism, which requires a plein air approach in technique. I use photographs sometimes to check the composition, tonal values, context, etc., but the actual painting is always done out in the open, in front of the subject. I am interested in urban, human activity in balance (sometimes in conflict) with nature. Age and history are elements I seek out when “scouting” a scene. Weathered wood and paint, rusty metal, crumbling buildings… these are things which to me represent the esential elements of nature and human existence within a taoist perspective. My work as an academic in the field of education has taken me to many places in Africa, so much of my work was done there. I am currently interested in the urban development and rural history in and around the cities of Greenville and Abbeville, South Carolina. The meditative experience of my process is informed primarily by western science (3D visual sensory processing), eastern philosophy (taoism), and western philosophy (phenomenology), existential psychology and critical social theory.

Human presence in the environment, both past and present, captures my imagination. Buildings, as part of the natural landscape, represent the effects of human activity over time. Space, location and time are elements which I try to represent in my artwork, working towards a truthful rendering of my visual experience in these places. I work in the larger realist, representational tradition, but like to label what I do as "holonomic realism," combining realist painting and drawing techniques, an understanding of the spatial perception and experience, and the phenomenological inquiry of location, events and social communication.

David Scott McCurry