Dave Walsh

Dave Walsh (b. 1987, Scranton, PA) received his BFA from the Tyler School of Art and his MFA from Yale University. In Walsh's words, the artist's goal is to "investigate how altering the perspective of landscapes can question and undermine the power inherent in the single viewpoint. In confronting ecological crises, there is a great deal of unlearning to do. The individualism of romanticism is incapable of confronting climate catastrophe. Ecological awareness needs enlarged perspectives, multiple points of data and the ability to see information and perceive the world simultaneously." Walsh's process begins with fieldwork in national parks, wilderness areas and recreation areas where viewing the landscape becomes a leisure activity. The paintings are translations of these on-site observations framed by a history of recreation, imperialism and aesthetics. Walsh states, "These large works celebrate a history of things rarely imaged or acknowledged as part of the pictorial landscape tradition. Roads, parking lots and architecture often exist outside the captured image... I reinterpret the devices of landscape imagery to re-situate them into contemporary life. Sites once imaged through singular points of view need to be re-imaged through multiple perspectives". Walsh's paintings present a way of seeing that acknowledges the history and cultural constructions regarding nature and landscape. His large-scale works facilitate the act of seeing landscape through the body. The paintings create multiple horizons, floating and fragmenting into a groundlessness; they force the background to come to the foreground. The artist is a newly appointed professor of painting at SUNY Purchase.