DAVID P. STEPHENS
ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I first engaged in the art making process as a child - through private art lessons - which fuelled my interest in exploring the origins of art and the influence of various cultural and social forces. Over time, I developed a passion for process and material through experimentation - trial and error. The use of non-traditional art materials such as found objects and automotive paint in my art making process has become a means for me to reference a variety of cultural concepts, including popular culture, gender, fine, folk and outsider art. The materials help to define my aesthetic - serving as ground for the application of colour and layering of found objects. Using alternative materials has become essential to the creation of new work - not only in expressing my concern for the discarded items, but also in exemplifying the beauty of objectivity. The combination of familiarity with the discarded item and the application of my painting technique create a new history - and sometimes this unison chooses to become, “art”. The process demands my attention and commitment and drives the potential of the chosen material. 

Elements such as complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, incompletion and imperfection exist at the core of culture, and it is within these realms that art springs to life. I strive to acknowledge and embrace these in-between spaces and their fundamental role in the human experience, as combined with environmental and social forces we are all exposed to - through space and time. 

Through the utilization of the found object, bold line, and simplified form, I attempt to create art as drawn from that which I know, from my environment, my surroundings, relating everyday experiences that most have dealt with at sometime in their lives. Thus, I strive to create and present, “a symbolic and visual landscape” (Smart 2000: 26), bursting with visual anecdotes of life in, on, and around the ocean. 

Click here to read an insightful Q & A interview with David referencing his participation in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s Terroir: A Nova Scotia Survey Exhibit Blog.