David Abbott lives and works in Bristol, UK. He grew up in Hertfordshire, moving to Virginia, USA as a teenager where he attended high school and university before returning to the UK in 2004. He moved to Bristol and completed an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking in 2007. Abbott worked as a graphic designer for fifteen years before taking up painting full time. He has exhibited work in the UK, Europe and North America.
Abbott’s work combines visions of the present with hazy recollections in order to explore the subjects of memory and perception using landscape as a medium. His work explores the landscape as the object of our projections. A fountainhead of solace and old power, full of its own hidden histories and wisdom and the backdrop for our loves, losses, tragedies and comedies. Sometimes Abbott’s paintings assert themselves confidently, other times they appear to disappear before our eyes. His paintings are deep, ever-change landscapes that flicker between recognition and unknowing – composite visions of place, memory and myth.
Solo exhibitions include Brighter Fields (2004) at Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole USA; By and By (2023) at Nationale 8 Gallery, Brussels and A Certain Day (2022), That Art Gallery, Bristol. Group exhibitions include The Lido Open (2024) at Lido Stores, Margate; South by South West (2024) at Gurr Johns, London; Staged Nature (2023) at Glyndebourne, Lewes and Things Seen (2023) at Make Room, Los Angeles.
