Tell me a little bit about yourself
I graduated from SFU with a BFA in Visual Art in 2011 since then I have been traveling a lot, participating in some group shows and exploring my creative interests. I designed and helped build the Vancouver Effigy for Burning Man 2012, which was burned along with 32 other structures at the event. My medium of choice is sculpture but I have been experimenting with printmaking and mixed media more since finishing my undergraduate degree.
Tell me a little bit more about your art
My art consists of breaking down, rearranging, manipulating, or repeating existing objects and images to create a new perspective on the familiar. This treatment of the material is often informed by a psychological or physiological process such as the ability of our memory to fracture or amplify images from our past. Mythological and esoteric symbolism also inspires my work as it has the ability to enrich and extend the cultural power and significance of a given object or image.
1. How would you define your work in five words?
Multiplied, deconstructed, calculated, eclectic, abstract
2. What drives you to create art?
As cheesy as it sounds, life. The people around me especially other artists whose work I admire, events, experiences, nature, and my environment. I like to borrow from different media as well film, television, and music mainly. Lately I have been influenced quite a bit by my emotional reactions to experiences. I feel like the drive to create art is so closely linked to our need to express our inner dialog. Finding a way to channel the energy that we absorb from our experiences into the work makes creating art feel like a relief, I guess it’s a form of therapy.
3. What food, drink, song inspires you?
I’ve never really thought about how food and drink influence my art before. I would have to say fruit and wine. They have such a rich connection to art history and I also really enjoy the visual diversity of fruit I guess they are both passionate things. As for music it really depends on my mood I think music amplifies how we feel so sad, happy, aggressive, contemplative, romantic ya there is a song for all of that.
4. What does your creative process look like when you are looking to begin a new work?
I think way too much before I even begin so my process is a lot of working on an idea and reworking. It’s key to just start working because most of the time it will take a few attempts to mold the idea into something close to what I imagined. I feel like every good idea is perfect in my head and the real challenge is to reproduce it in physical form as close to that original intention.
5. Do you ever collaborate with other artists?
Not as much as I would like to. Collaboration is one of the best ways to learn more about yourself and the work. It is incredibly beneficial to have someone else challenging you and pushing you to dive deeper into the work or explore an idea further. Collaboration can cause conflict but as long as it’s manageable the outcome is usually powerful.
6. What are some of the important lessons you learned from school?
Process is very important, there is no replacement for hard work. The more you explore and invest in an idea the more it will give back to you. Art School teaches a lot about context as well which is important because work exists in relation to what has come before it and the world that surrounds it.
7. What have you been up to after graduating from SFU?
I’ve been traveling and going on adventures mostly. New ideas and creative drive come from challenging ourselves and being passionate about the world we live in. The more I expose myself to new experiences the more I want to express myself through art.
8. Any favorite artists or websites we should check out?
Yes! I am really inspired by graphic work and street art at the moment so Juxtapoz.com and unurth.com are great. In terms of artists, I really like Connor Harrington’s work his ability to combine figurative and abstract elements into his paintings is incredible. I was also blown away by the Marc Quinn show I saw in New York at Mary Boone Gallery. He made these immaculate gigantic bronze seashells from 3D prints that had a real presence to them. Matthew Day Jackson and Paul McCarthy had some very beautiful and interesting sculptural work that I saw at Hauser and Wirth Gallery and Frieze Art Fair on that trip as well.
Thank you David! For more of David's work please visit david stein studio
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