Welcome
Hello and welcome to my webspace.
Artist Statement
I am a painter who uses two traditional methods: watercolour and oil painting. However, I do not use them in the typical manner. My watercolours can be large and painted very loosely, often without a pencil drawing. Almost all of my watercolours are painted from still lives or in plein aire. To me this is the essence of raw painting. David Hockney, Francesco Clemente and Julian Schnabel are my influences.
My oil paintings are built in layers and use gold leaf. I also love the use of the painterly brushwork, dragged colours and sometimes use impasto techniques. My influences are Lucien Freud, Andrew Wyeth and Byzantine religious ikons.
I do not consider myself a realist and yet my paintings are often based on realism. My themes vary from places I have traveled to, literature and music to more personal images, like portraits or humdrum objects as in a still life. Life is about painting - painting is life.
Although a good part of my recent work reflects on Mexico, and I just closed a one-person exhibition entitled, "Dreaming in Mexican", not all of my work reflects this part of me. Throughout the year I will add a variety of material that I have painted about.
30 December 2011
Copyright © David Cheney, 2012, All rights reserved.