Celebration, 35th Anniversary Exhibition IV
Since I began my professional career as an artist in the 1980s, visual narrative, usually nonlinear, has been a core component of my work. I’ve used it as a structural device to build content and express ideas while still being able to experiment with form. My early work making paintings and single prints used content-laden narrative, and over the years it has best served my interests through complementary projects: paintings, drawings, seriographs, and hand-printed books as well as comic books.
Oil on canvas
44 x 140 in.
My work has always been very personal, and my penchant for social commentary and satire is informed by my experiences and impressions. When I moved to rural Alabama form Northern Ireland as a teenager in 1972, I experienced culture shock but the religious, political, cultural, and racial divisions in American society were similar to those I grew up with in Belfast. As a result, much of my work over the past 35 years has been concerned with examining culture and politics. In my current artist’s book and painting series, I’m exploring the aspects of American history and legend that still haunt the present, including hidebound notions experiencing a resurgence by the American right such as manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.
David Sandlin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1956. Since 1980 he has lived in New York City where he makes art and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited his paintings, prints, and drawings extensively in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Austria, and his comics and illustrations have appeared in The Best American Comics for2015, 2012, and 2009; The New Yorker; Raw; and other publications. He has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, and other institutions.
Space One Eleven Involvement: Exhibiting Artist: Land of a Thousand Beers 1989, Shifting Planes 2007, Sampler Part 1 2011-2012, Barriers 2011-2012; Featured Artist: SOEdible Cookbook 2012