David Syre: Roots and Wings

April 3 – 24, 2019

CORDATA GALLERY is pleased to announce David Syre: Roots and Wings, to open on April 3, 2019 from 6 to 9 pm. This show marks David Syre’s first personal exhibition in his hometown Bellingham, WA.

After years of silent work in his personal studio, and a number of exhibitions abroad (Nice, France, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Buenos Aires, Argentina) Syre has developed an artistic maturity that deserves full public attention.

The exhibition, curated by Ana Palacio, features a selection of works that span his artistic career so far, from one of the very first paintings he made at age 7 to the most recent large-scale canvases that show a complex mastery of painting techniques and visual translation of spiritual, personal and collective experiences.

David Syre’s art is closely related to his inner voice and is inspired by daily meditation sessions and research about topics such as the commitment to universal peace, love, compassion, and forgiveness. To him, color means “expression” and symbols “discourse”, and he plays with the emotional response each one triggers.

His early paintings are rich in forms, lines, and numbers which represent a system of symbols to which the artist attributes specific meanings. The complex backgrounds often blend with the main figures. Progressively, his works evolved to simpler aesthetics where the backgrounds are reduced to almost monochrome color fields allowing the main figures to stand out and to assume the leading role of the visual narrative. The thoughtful installation of the works in the gallery will offer to every visitor a journey through Syre’s life as an artist and as an observer of the many facets of our current societies.

A culminating aspect of the exhibition will be the introduction to his latest three-dimensional works and mixed media sculptures. This exhibition represents a life-long journey and the artist’s commitment to push against any art practice related boundaries in the future.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog with an essay by the curator, a text by Amy Syre Healy, and a curated collection of images that emphasize the creative transformation David Syre is undertaking