ANOTHER LIFE - THE STILL EVOLVING ARTISTIC JOURNEY OF DAVID GALLUP
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David Gallup is an explorer. Not just of nature but of the introspective and spiritual connection man has with his environment. His life’s passion has become a quest for new interpretations of the natural world without leaving his roots in Plein-Air Observation-Based painting. Working in the style of the impressionist masters, many of David’s works are created on location in some of the world’s most beautiful and fascinating places-California and the Channel Islands National Park and Marine Sanctuary, Hawaii, Alaska, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Yellowstone National Park and anywhere under the seas. They often depict moments when natural elements, such as fog, rain, water, glare, or darkness obscure solid forms. These elements are used in Gallup’s work to visually represent the sense of awe and mystery he feels for the natural world.
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“David Gallup is a
luminist in the classical definition of the word, with an ability to capture
light in the landscape in a manner unmatched by most contemporary artists. In
his paintings, something far greater than scenery is being recorded--it is a
sense of place, the spirit of nature, and an impression of light that speaks
directly to the soul of the viewer.”
~ Allison Malafronte, Staff Writer for American Artist Magazine and Workshop Magazine |
THE EARLY YEARS
Having trained to be an artist since early childhood, he has
diligently pursued his craft ever since. As a young man he worked as a writer,
illustrator, and art director for a Los Angeles newspaper to pay his way
through art school. In 1990 he graduated from the Otis Art Institute of Parsons
School of Design. He immediately began teaching art, and spent four years as an
art instructor for Mission: Renaissance, a private art school which stresses
having a strong classical background in line, tone and color as well as a solid
knowledge of art history. While Gallup has since embraced a more modern aesthetic, his formal training and these classical influences
are still somewhat evident in Gallup’s work today.
In 1992 Gallup met Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata and soon became the lead staff artist on the “Earthly Paradise” collection. It was during the early years of this relationship that Gallup began to develop his use of color harmony, rather than contrast, which marks his work today. Gallup’s innovative use of basic music theory to find harmony in color is soothing and subtle, and its benefits are visible even to the untrained eye.
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“David Gallup is
fascinating painter who goes through great lengths to achieve on canvas what
his heart desires. Sometimes this means
standing on a perilously high cliff at night to get just the right hues of a
brilliant moon shining on the surface of the Pacific waters just below;
sometimes it means to do what no other painter has dared to do. This qualifies David as an “audacious”
painter, but more, it puts him in the category of the “true fine artist” who
will stop at nothing to produce art that will stir the soul. His quest for the spiritual in the outer
world knows no bounds. He reminds me of
the Gothic and Renaissance painters who sincerely sought to reflect through
their artwork the greatness of the Master Artist who with one stroke of the
spiritual paintbrush painted creation.”
James Leonard-Amodeo, The FINE ARTS MAGAZINE 
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David was part of Landscape United Nature Artists (LUNA), a non-profit group of artists dedicated to preservation of some of the world’s most delicate ecosystems and was a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Natural World Museum whose mission was to inspire and engage the public in environmental awareness and action. He is a Signature Member of Artists for Conservation which supports conservation organizations globally to provide wildlife and habitat conservation.
Inspired by the end of the millennium, Gallup dedicated 1999 to painting sunsets. Although he painted almost every night, he selected just one sunset from each week to document the final year of the 20th Century. The resulting collection of stunning impressionist paintings, “ 52 California Sunsets - The Waning of the Twentieth Century ” was exhibited in West Los Angeles in July 2000 to great critical acclaim.
Inspired by the end of the millennium, Gallup dedicated 1999 to painting sunsets. Although he painted almost every night, he selected just one sunset from each week to document the final year of the 20th Century. The resulting collection of stunning impressionist paintings, “ 52 California Sunsets - The Waning of the Twentieth Century ” was exhibited in West Los Angeles in July 2000 to great critical acclaim.
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“This series of paintings not only depicts the impression of sunsets but expresses my own personal journal of the last year of the twentieth century. In trying to chronicle a year of sunsets, I found that I had accidentally captured a year of my own emotions and experiences. I have learned so very much in my own moments of reflection at sunset. In preparing for this show, I have come to intimately understand that sunsets not only express the light that composes them but reflect the human spirit in its grandeur as well as it’s subtlety. There is so much variety in life and the light that surrounds it.”
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In fall of 2000, David began an important relationship with the California Art Club (CAC) when he became a juried Artist Member. The CAC has since honored Gallup’s work by including him in their prestigious Annual Gold Medal Exhibitions.
His painting, "Twice Humbled- Orcas off the Anacapa Coast" won the Club's highest honor at the 99th Gold Medal Exhibition, the "Gold Medal for Best Painting." Gallup served as Vice-President of the club and member of their Board of Directors for 12 years and served as Gold Medal Artist’s Chairman from 2008- 2016. He is a Signature Member of the California Art Club. Photo courtesy of Walt Mancini, Copyright 2010 |
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Here, Gallup is seen at the Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art in San Antonio, Texas, where he received three awards including the coveted “People’s Choice Award” for his painting “California Daydream” in June 2004.
The media have also taken notice of Gallup. Since 2001 his name has been seen regularly in such magazines as Southwest Art Magazine, Art of the West Magazine and The Fine Arts Magazine, with in-depth coverage of his career and paintings in The Fine Arts Magazine (2003) and Art of the West (2006). He was featured in Workshop magazine in 2007, American Artist Magazine in Summer of 2010 and Spring of 2011 and Outdoor Painter (2013). A one-hour documentary film is being produced in HD by the Essential Image Source Foundation, with funding and support from Sony, exploring the artist's thoughts, methods, and works. It is scheduled for an international cable T.V. audience, Blue Ray distribution, and limited local release. |
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THE MUSEUM SHOWS
Beginning in 2005, Gallup spent much of the next six years painting the Channel Islands National Park and Marine Sanctuary. He developed a special relationship with the Park and its employees, which allowed him to gain significant insight into this beautiful and unique ecosystem. He used this opportunity to create the largest body of paintings of the islands to date- over 150 works- in order to raise awareness of the Park's special status and challenges. Many of these paintings were exhibited at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Malibu, California in the summer of 2011. His first solo museum exhibition, "David C. Gallup: California's Channel Islands" broke attendance records at this renowned museum, which normally hosts traveling exhibitions of Modern Art and Pop Art by some of the biggest names in Art History. The success of this exhibition brought a host of offers from other museums each wanting Gallup's next exhibition.
"Beneath the Surface: A Closer Look at our Oceans" opened at the Carnegie Museum of Art in California in the Summer of 2012, and focused on Gallup's innovative undersea subject matter pulled from his scuba and snorkeling experiences in California and beyond. Gallup had entered the museum world with a splash: highlights from the Channel Islands exhibition were shown in a solo exhibition of Gallup's work at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach in fall of 2011, and some were included in group exhibitions at the Wildling Museum in Los Olivos; the Autry National Center in Los Angeles; the Pasadena Museum of California Art; and at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Some of the paintings traveled to museums nationwide, and were seen as far away as Vermont and Washington, D.C. Sponsors of Gallup's Channel Islands paintings include The National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy, Sony, and a collaboration of prominent American Museums and Aquariums. His travels to the islands have also been supported by a network of small businesses including Sail Channel Islands and Scubahaus and private donors including The Bill & Marilyn Field. Gallup's paintings from this exhibition continue to travel to museums nationwide thanks to the generous support of many of their collectors.
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A hardcover book, "David C. Gallup: California's Channel Islands" was released in 2011, and Rizzoli's "California Light: A Century of Landscapes" discusses Gallup's island work in depth.
TODAY AND INTO THE FUTURE
David learned to scuba dive in 2010 to experience the Channel Islands National Park and Marine Sanctuary more fully as he was painting for his Frederick R. Weisman Museum show in Malibu, California. Diving was the doorway to a new and diverse world of beauty, deep mystery and rich lessons of life. In this new environment of endless inspiration, he began to capture his spiritual and emotional experiences by painting it’s animals, light, and deep beauty . He found intrigue, mystery and enlightenment in this undersea world and is continuing his theme of uncovering, discovering and memorializing their mysteries and beauty in his paintings. Encounters with sharks, which he describes not as an adrenaline rush but as a Zen experience, have recently fueled his imagination, and these sleek predators are finding their way onto his canvases with increasing regularity.
"Regarding the process of creating images of the ocean: It is a challenging subject, but these challenges are what makes it so rewarding.
My process is to go into the ocean, have experiences, and respond to them on canvas. I do not typically bring a camera with me on my dives, though sometimes I wish I had one when I'm there. I don't take one because I like the results better when I work from my memory.
Humans experience visual stimuli in a very different way than a camera would. For one thing, we don't see the world in instants, but as a continuum. Also, all underwater cameras rely on a flash, which changes the natural light source on the subject. And, finally, the camera gives too much information which, when translated into a painting, gives the viewer the camera's experience, rather than the diver's experience. E.G. ~ look at a small school of fish in the ocean. You could never count them because they are moving all the time. They function more as one mass of tangled, moving color and light than as individual animals. I want my paintings to show the same sense of confusion, and keeping a camera out of the process is very helpful in that regard.
I start by doing some studies on canvas, directly in paint from my memory. Then, as I work, I research the animals, learning what they eat, what eats them, their range, mating habits, lifecycle. Intimate knowledge of them will help to ensure I depict them in an accurate way, though I don't hesitate to paint behaviors which I've observed which are contrary to known behaviors. Our knowledge of the animal world is only beginning to gel, and my observations can hopefully contribute to the aggregate. It is only at the end of a wildlife painting that I will study the anatomy of the animal with photos and illustrations, never taking poses from them, but studying proportion and structure.
Philosophy is at the core of results. Because my desire is to create naturalistic, not photorealistic, images of life below the surface, this guides my process and affects my results. I emphasize beauty and motion over anatomy, mystery over explanation, eyes over camera. These choices ultimately form the finished painting."
"Regarding the process of creating images of the ocean: It is a challenging subject, but these challenges are what makes it so rewarding.
My process is to go into the ocean, have experiences, and respond to them on canvas. I do not typically bring a camera with me on my dives, though sometimes I wish I had one when I'm there. I don't take one because I like the results better when I work from my memory.
Humans experience visual stimuli in a very different way than a camera would. For one thing, we don't see the world in instants, but as a continuum. Also, all underwater cameras rely on a flash, which changes the natural light source on the subject. And, finally, the camera gives too much information which, when translated into a painting, gives the viewer the camera's experience, rather than the diver's experience. E.G. ~ look at a small school of fish in the ocean. You could never count them because they are moving all the time. They function more as one mass of tangled, moving color and light than as individual animals. I want my paintings to show the same sense of confusion, and keeping a camera out of the process is very helpful in that regard.
I start by doing some studies on canvas, directly in paint from my memory. Then, as I work, I research the animals, learning what they eat, what eats them, their range, mating habits, lifecycle. Intimate knowledge of them will help to ensure I depict them in an accurate way, though I don't hesitate to paint behaviors which I've observed which are contrary to known behaviors. Our knowledge of the animal world is only beginning to gel, and my observations can hopefully contribute to the aggregate. It is only at the end of a wildlife painting that I will study the anatomy of the animal with photos and illustrations, never taking poses from them, but studying proportion and structure.
Philosophy is at the core of results. Because my desire is to create naturalistic, not photorealistic, images of life below the surface, this guides my process and affects my results. I emphasize beauty and motion over anatomy, mystery over explanation, eyes over camera. These choices ultimately form the finished painting."
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"I just wondered whether you could tell me a few things that influenced you to paint the way you do, or study the subject you look at." Robyn, student doing class report in UK
David's reply: "If its not obvious, my subject is born of my passion for the sea, and the life therein.I might have nearly been happy as a marine biologist and writer, if not for finding this niche for myself. |
And, I LOVE paint. I love it the way my dog loves gravy. Thick, bold, tortured surfaces of many layered paint. YUM! Nicolai Fechin, John Henry Twachtman! Monet, for God's sake!!! And Klimt, are you kidding me??? Beautiful Geniuses all. My reason for everything I do, to bring undersea art to the level of the masters.
Open theater. Nobody has even tried, as far as I can tell. It is waiting for me, begging me to be noticed. You want beautiful paintings of nude humans? I can find it. Open countrysides at sunset?? Many have mastered it. Crashing waves? A few have understood them well enough... Just a few, but it's been done, and tried by me too for too long. But what of the World beneath the sea?? Who will sing of her to the masses with TASTE and Honesty?
She is waiting for me, and I am coming! But with taste, respect, knowledge, and restraint. Because I love her. It's 70% of Earth, and the source of all life, after all."
Open theater. Nobody has even tried, as far as I can tell. It is waiting for me, begging me to be noticed. You want beautiful paintings of nude humans? I can find it. Open countrysides at sunset?? Many have mastered it. Crashing waves? A few have understood them well enough... Just a few, but it's been done, and tried by me too for too long. But what of the World beneath the sea?? Who will sing of her to the masses with TASTE and Honesty?
She is waiting for me, and I am coming! But with taste, respect, knowledge, and restraint. Because I love her. It's 70% of Earth, and the source of all life, after all."
California Art Club's
104th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles. March 2015. Winner of American Art Collector Award of Excellence |
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