David Kessler American

David T Kessler was born in Park Ridge, New Jersey on September 5, 1950. At the age of 2, his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. He attended Arizona State University for his B.F.A. where he received the award for Outstanding Graduate in Studio Art in 1972. In 1973, he was one of 12 painters accepted into the graduate program at the renowned San Francisco Art Institute. He received a Tiffany Scholarship along with his M.F.A. in 1975.
After graduating from SF Art Institute, he received significant attention for his first photo-realist paintings known as the Ruined Slide Series. In this series, he distinguished himself from other photo-realists by allowing for naturally existing abstractions like rainbow light leaks, and chemical spots/blemishes to coexist with the photo-realist image of the slide. In this initial painting series, Kessler combined Renaissance space with modern space, ie. Renaissance space where the canvas acts as a picture window to be viewed through, and modern space where the viewer’s attention is focused on the surface of the painting.
Kessler returned to Arizona in 1981 where this use of coexisting spaces as a theme would be continued in his paintings of the 1980’s. This was achieved via photographing the landscape through a clear plastic sheet which he had previously painted with abstract marks. The resulting canvases have the observer viewing the landscape as if through a window, but at the same time being confronted by the abstractions on the plastic veil the landscape was viewed through bringing the attention back to the surface of the painting.
In the 1990’s, Kessler began painting on sheets of aluminum. He primarily focused on images of water surfaces, giving him the ability to choose a close-up, almost abstract image or a more stepped-back recognizable image. The paintings are created partially by refracted light which is created by abrading the aluminum with various wire brushes, and paint which is air-brushed onto the aluminum. The resulting effect is somewhat holographic and changes when viewed from different angles. Kessler’s first solo exhibition in New York’s O.K. Harris Gallery, featured large scale versions of these works.
Kessler’s paintings have been exhibited internationally since 1977, with shows in Tokyo, London, Andorra, Brazil, Hamburg. Strasbourg, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. His work is regularly exhibited in US art museums and is in the collections of the following museums:

Strasbourg Museum of Contemporary Art, France
Brooklyn Museum of Art, USA
Minnesota Museum of American Art, USA
Phoenix Art Museum, USA
Tucson Museum of Art, USA
Northern Arizona University Art Museum, USA
Scottsdale Center for the Arts, USA
Monterey Museum of Art, USA
Euphrat Museum of Art, DeAnza College, USA
Crocker Art Museum, USA
Arizona State University Art Museum, USA Barrington Art Center, USA
Portsmouth Community College Art Center, USA Davidson College, USA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, USA