David Willburn

About David

My studio work and process is at the intersection of craft and fine art, and within that space I explore traditions of drawing, painting, and sculpture. The process of making mixed-media paintings and collages begins with images and ideas culled from contemporary culture and politics—more specifically influenced by photographs or events I have seen or experienced. History, personal stories, social and cultural symbolism, or concepts derived from mass media are starting points that are filtered through layers of abstraction and analysis as a way of stripping away the familiarity and ‘objectness’ of things and situations. I think these reimagined ideas and the resulting compositions are loaded with more possibility. In these abstractions I find new narratives, and I look for ways to exploit materials, reshaping and repurposing things through form and subject.

Born in Fort Stockton, Texas, David Willburn lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas. He earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts (Montpelier, VT). His work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues including Dallas Contemporary (Dallas, TX), San Diego Art Institute (San Diego, CA), University of Art and Design (Helsinki, Finland), Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Union Gallery at University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI), Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR), and Platform Gallery (Seattle, WA, online). 

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