About: David Poyser

Born: 1952 Nottinghamshire, England United Kingdom.

Art practice: Collectively, from the 1960s-2020s - artworks include both abstract and figurative paintings, inventive photocolleges and multiple short art movies, and some early sculpture. His abstract paintings explore themes related to the sublime in traditional English Romantic Art (eg JMW Turner, Samuel Palmer, John Martin) and American Abstract Painting (eg Color Field Painting, Post Painterely Abstraction, Minimalism).

Periods: Postmodern Art / Modern Art / Contemporary Art. - 20th / 21st Century.

Artist statement: "My later abstract paintings of the 2020s developed from looking back to my early period of the 1960s/70s, constructed within formalist compositions, space, form, colour and invention with materials, reflecting personal experiences of the landscape through skies, the moon, land expanses, forests, the sea and rivers, valleys and canyons, and the light spectrum - including in my mid-years the concept of working in the outdoors as a studio and gallery, initially in my garden which expanded to the UK landscape and further to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. There are connections to the US, Canada and France from my different road trips, the River Thames from my times in London (eg painting 'Nocturne: River Thames At Twilight'), the Moon from the skies over the meadows of my native Nottinghamshire of my childhood days, the mystery and visionary sensations I felt from my time living in a North Yorkshire village, and art historical interests about the sublime in Turner, Whistler and Palmer, American Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism forms of Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly for instance, and Bauhaus design - with additional design elements from a teenage interest in advertising billboards from football grounds in the 1960s and early 1970s, and 1960s Pop graphic art, extending into the development of my collection of photocollages, which are held in offline files. A significant element in my early ideas about visual space came from my being inside football stadiums in the 1960s and early 1970s - including a period employed as a steward for a football club while I was a foundation art student - from the spectacle of the stadium as a theatre which formed my painting process, the playing pitch in perspective, and the inclined banks of spectators. My favourite artist is the fictional painter Claude Lantier for his single-mindedness and great ambition as a painter, from Emile Zola's novel 'L'Oeuvre' ('The Masterpiece')".    

Education:

- Royal College of Art London 1998-2001 - MPhil RCA - advanced research degree - included Research Methodologies course, dissertation and Final Show - supervising tutor was Professor James Park of the Royal College of Art - internal Viva Voce examiners included Professor Chris Orr and Professor Clare Johnston.

- Royal College of Art London 1997-98 - PEP Post Experience Programme - for mid-career artists. 

- London University Institute of Education 1987-88 - PGCE Art & Design - included teaching practice at the Slade School of Fine Art, following application and interview, supervised by Slade tutor Ron Bowen.

- Newcastle University 1978-80 - MFA Painting - dissertation on Matthias Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece - personal tutor was Professor Kenneth Rowntree.

- Loughborough College of Art & Design 1971-74 - DipAD Fine Art - major in Painting supported by Printmaking, with course in History of Art 1960s-Present and dissertation on American Abstract Expressionism - tutors included the Royal Academy Schools painter Doug Kemp.

- Mansfield College of Art 1969-71 - Foundation Art Course - curriculum reflected Bauhaus interdisciplinary principles - tutors included the Welsh painter Philip Muirden of the Royal Academy Schools.

Artworks: Series & periods 1960s-2020s - include Temple Painting, American Storm, Chernobyl, The Island, Miracle, landscapes made in Canada and the UK, American road paintings, American photographs and  photocollages, 'Swirl' art movie from numerous others, plus earlier wooden 'Heads' series of sculptures from among others.

Art-related travel: 10,000 mile road trip through nine states in Western America from California to New Mexico, crossing the Alberta Prairies to paint huge canvases in the Rocky Mountains, and a road trip through France from Dunkirk via Paris and south to the French Riviera.

Exhibitions include:

1965 - 1st Prize Winner in a national junior painting competition, exhibited at the Tate Gallery London, Manchester Whitworth Art Gallery, and Glasgow Museum & Art Gallery - winning painting subject 'Astronaut On The Moon'. 

1970 - Mansfield College of Art - two student mixed exhibitions.

1974 - graduation exhibition at Loughborough College of Art & Design. 

1979 - the nationally prestigious Northern Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester - exhibited large oil on canvas 'Temple Painting'. 

1979-80 - three exhibitions at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

1979-80 - two exhibitions at the Below Stairs Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne - includes one solo exhibition of figurative oil paintings, plus a mixed exhibition curated by David Poyser.

1983c - St Mark's Church (Hall), Mansfield - solo exhibition of still life pastel paintings.   

1987 - Dryden Street Art Gallery, London - solo exhibition of still life paintings and drawings.

1988 - represented Great Britain at the 8th International Ex-Libris Printmaking Exhibition, in Urawa City, Japan.

1988 - Bloomsbury Art Gallery, London University Institute of Education - exhibition opened by Diana, Princess of Wales.

1994 - Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries London - abstract painting.

1995 - Royal Institute of Oil Panters, Mall Galleries London - abstract painting.

1996 - National Open Printmaking Exhibition, Mall Galleries London - abstract painting.

1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 - collectively, eleven site-specific solo exhibitions of large scale landscape paintings made in the UK New Forest, the south coast of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall sea and shore, and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

1997 - David Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art London - RCA awarded solo exhibition of above large landscape paintings on canvas and on-site photographs from Canada and England UK.

1999 - Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art London - research artwork.

1998-2001 - four exhibitions at the Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art London, including my MPhil Final Show graduation exhibition in 2001 - research artworks.​​​​

Developments 2001-2020s: Paintings and photographic artworks - includes those inspired by travel in the USA.
 

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