David Blackburn | This is not a Rehearsal

Opening: Tues 23rd March, 5.30 – 7pm

David’s work focuses on the body as a material and poetic means to explore the human condition. Assembled and constructed objects are striking as metaphors for the body.

Each work is encapsulated in an object that serves as a vessel to be inhabited and vacated. Questions about how to distinguish between the flesh and the psyche are raised, as the relationships between objects and materials vary, and suggested reconciliations are played out.

Reference is drawn to Vanitas painting; there is a delicately macabre sense of fragility to the works. However, the impressions of decay are challenged by a sense of nurture and compassion as well as the preciousness with which each form is preserved. Constructed and reconstructed examples of human intervention also pervade throughout the works, and an emphasis on sensuality invites one to contemplate with empathy before intellect.

David graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a BFA in 1992. His recent work has increasingly focused on research and experimentation around ways to reinvent the human form.