A little bit about myself.......
I was born in Freedom Fields hospital on 28/01/1978 and was drawing before I went to primary school. It was while at a preschool play group that I started drawing accurate outlines of objects and impressing the children and staff.
All throughout primary and secondary school I just wanted to draw and quickly found I could amuse my fellow students by drawing characatures of teachers or other students in rude ways, it was my way of ingratiating myself with the cool kids, it was my 'rock in my sock'! In 1997 I went to college in Plymouth and I met Robert Lenkiewicz while wandering around the Barbican, I showed him a sketchbook of ink drawings but he was far from impressed and told me to come back when I had something worth showing. Up until then I had never been too good at painting but started using oil paint for the first time and found it behaved exactly the way I wanted paint to behave.
I went back with some paintings and eventually Robert Lenkiewicz began teaching me. I kept on bringing him my work over the next few years and he would always tell me exactly what I needed to hear to improve. In the year before his death he depicted me as a disciple in his paintings The Last Supper (second figure on the right), and The Crucifixion (first figure on the left). It was a great honour for me and very interesting to see how he worked.
I was living in Bristol when I heard he had died and I was grief stricken as he was the biggest artistic influence of my life, he was a truly great painter and I believe him to be one of the most important artists of modern times. I carried on painting and regularly had work shown in Bristol, especially at Grant Bradley gallery which has exhibitions of the Bristol Life Drawing group ran by Will Stevens, of which I was a part. The exhibitions were big and very varied as to the work shown.
I will carry on painting and drawing as long as I am able.
Dave
