David Farmer

Realist/Impressionist oil painter David Farmer lives in Danville. Education includes art schools in Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and a BA in English.
“Painting, for me, is the use of color as an emotional language in the creation of a work reflective of the energy of nature. It’s a quest, an appetite never satisfied. Always revealing more to be discovered.”

Farmer began exhibiting professionally in l996, participating in numerous juried and solo exhibits.  His work has received several awards and is in many private and corporate collections as well as being represented in commercial galleries in Kentucky and elsewhere. 

Farmers Market SOLD

My impulse to paint comes from a desire to experience the mysterious, sensuous, and powerful emotional language of color.  I would rather look at a Mark Rothko than The Mona Lisa anytime.  Painting well means being excited and I know that if I’m not excited by what I’m doing no one else will be, so the effort is ever directed towards returning the energy experienced through nature in a work that suggest depth, drama, mood, and an intimation of always something more to be found.

I can’t spend days and days on a painting.  The best ones are completed in a single session, sometimes lasting many hours.  It’s a matter of swiftly pursuing a strong feeling in a mode of spontaneous vitality and tension that allows little time for contemplation or refinement but accesses the subconscious and intuitive, grounded in years of experience and education.  Nor is the intent to paint “scenery” or a literal transcription of reality.  The intent is to create a work of seemingly permanent changing energy that seems to extend beyond the canvas through a tapestry of color and texture that compels the viewer’s contemplation and return to the viewing, always seeing more.

It is an adventure with no end, only more striving, searching; an appetite never satisfied.