About David Poyser

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Born: 1952 Nottinghamshire, England United Kingdom.

Art practice: Collectively, in series and periods to allow for explorations and developments over time, from the 1960s-2020s - principally a painter with interests in other areas - artworks include both abstract and figurative paintings, inventive photocolleges, multiple short art movies, some early sculpture, and research into new art forms. His 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: Late-Modernism - mid-20th / 21st Century.

Other creative written works: Unpublished > fictional novel about a haunted artist, collection of poems inspired by his paintings, two photo-illustrated accounts of his painting in the English landscape and the Canadian Rocky Mountains, supporting technical notebooks for the development of his photocolleges and short art movies, available MPhil Royal College of Art research dissertation.

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 Pre-DipAD / 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 materials-based inter-disciplinary research degree, School of Fashion and Textiles, development of artworks from the interaction of textiles and painting - 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. Degree-awarding Convocation ceremony at the iconic Royal Albert Hall, London, to a packed audience (venue opposite the RCA at Kensington Gore, South Kensington).

Comments by my supervisor James Park included his saying to me "You'll be good for us" when I joined the College, plus a description of a painting of mine that incorporated a textiles weaving process as " a miracle", and "Just be brilliant, David" said to me by him just before my final viva voce exam. At that time 1997-2001 (including PEP course below), I was a pioneer of inter-disciplinary research at the RCA, which helped pave the way for others to follow over the next decades.

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

- London University Institute of Education, IOE, 1987-88 - PGCE Art & Design - QTS / Qualified Teacher Status. Supervisor was Director of Art and Design Department, Alfred Harris, artist of the School of London. Further professional development experience to my PGCE was a Teaching Practice Placement in 1988 at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. My application to the Slade was accepted and supervised by tutor Ron Bowen, Studio Head. I was based in the Painting and Sculpture studio areas.   

- Newcastle University 1978-80 - MFA Painting - dissertation on Matthias Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. Appointed "Studio Demonstrator in Painting" in the Fine Art Department by my personal supervisor and Head of Department Professor Kenneth Rowntree for the duration of my postgraduate degree. 

- Loughborough College of Art and Design 1971-74 - DipAD Fine Art - major in Painting supported by Printmaking, with course in History of Art 1960s-Present, Complementary Studies of Literature and Drama, and dissertation on American Abstract Expressionism - tutors included the Royal Academy Schools painter Doug Kemp. The Diploma in Art and Design (DipAD) was the premier prestigious national qualification before art colleges transitioned to BA (Hons) degrees.

NB: Loughborough College of Art and Design was a major independent art college which offered the elite DipAD qualification circa 1963-74, which then changed to and is equivalent to a Bachelor of Arts BA Hons university degree.

- Mansfield College of Art 1969-71 - Pre-DipAD / 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.

Exhibitions include:

1965 - (Full information to be confirmed) - 1st Prize Winner age category 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, Basement, Ridley Place, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 8JW - includes one solo exhibition of figurative oil paintings, plus a mixed exhibition curated by me, 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.

Art-related travel: 10,000 mile American road trip through nine states across the Western landscape, 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, plus two additional French trips to Paris including a short period living in Montmartre..

Other - sport:

1967 - Victor Ludorum, Champion of Champions athlete, prestigious award and trophy, inter-schools regional championships, 100 & 220 yards sprinter and long jumper. 

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