David Armstrong

born Arlington, MA (USA) 1954

David Armstrong grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He attended the Boston Museum School from 1974-77, where he'd planned to study painting. Instead, he switched almost immediately to photography. He moved to New York in 1977, studied at Cooper Union and spent the rest of the 70s and 80s living and working either in New York or Boston. After receiving a BFA at Tufts University in 1988, he moved back to New York permanently. During this period he worked primarily on black and white portraits. Because Armstrong works intuitively, the portraits are personal and intense. The work is forceful yet ephemeral - capturing the essence of the person while ineffably capturing the essence of Armstrong's own desire

In the early 90s Armstrong began working on landscapes, both as a new stimulus and as a way to relinquish control of the earlier, more rigid images. The landscapes - soft focus, painterly - also embody the personal and the ephemeral. Again they capture the essence of what they are and who Armstrong is; they're both internal and external landscapes. After moving to Berlin in 1992, Armstrong began working in color - almost by accident - and soon his 'eye' began seeing almost exclusively in color. Discreetly dramatic, these powerful landscapes sneak up on you; the palette is singularly lush, mysterious and sensual.

The work of the last four or five years has become a synthesis of portraiture and landscape - one could not exist without the formal or intuitive elements of the other. The newest work is a series of portraits of trees: diptychs that are simple and eloquent, yet full of the same quiet turbulence, raw beauty and mercurial emotion that have always been present in Armstrong's work.

Armstrong's work has been shown in the United States and Europe since 1980. He was featured in the 1995 Whitney Biennial and has been represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery since 95. Publications include The Silver Cord: Photographs by David Armstrong, published in 1997, and Nan Goldin/David Armstrong: A Double Life, published in 1994. He is currently living and working in New York.

Select Timeline

• 1954 Born: Arlington, Massachusetts
• 1974-78 Boston Museum School (Diploma, 1978; 5th Year Certificate, 1980)
• 1977-78 The Cooper Union, New York, (East Coast Exchange Program)
• 1984-88 Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, B.F.A,

Select Artwork

• Trees, Bovina
• Tree Trunks, Meredith, NY1
• Road with Trees, Bovina
• Hedges, Monfavet, Avignon
• Times Square
• Radio City Music Hall
• Red Bush, Marshfield
• Kathleen in Her Backyard
• Tree, Potsdam

Select Exhibitions

• 1980 - Traveling Fellows, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA
• 1981 - New York, New Wave, P.S. 1 (curated by Diego Cortez) Long Island City, NY
• 1984 - Traveling Fellows, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA
• 1989 - Against Our Vanishing, Artists' Space New York, NY
• 1990 - Portraits, P.S. 122 New York, NY
• 1990 - The Electric Blanket, The Cooper Union New York, NY
• 1993 - Love Again, Kunstraum Elbschloss Hamburg, Germany
• 1993 - L'Amerique de Nan Goldin, Galeries Photo de la FNAC Paris, France
• 1994 - Nan Goldin/David Armstrong: A Double Life, Museum fur Gestaltung Zurich, Switzerland
• 1995 - David Armstrong, Stephen Barker, Craigie Horsfield, Regen Projects Los Angeles, CA
• 1996 - Adicere Animos, Cesena Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery Cesena, Italy
• 1997 - Galerie Yvon Lambert Paris, France
• 1998 - Emotions and Relations, Hamburger Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany
• 1999 - New Photographs: Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY
• 2000 - Photography in Boston: 1955 - 1985, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts
• 2001 - Bang Street Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
• 2002 - Visions from America: Photographs from The Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940-2001, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• 2003 - David Armstrong: portraits and other works, early and recent, Galerie M + R Fricke, Dusseldorf
• 2004 - Indigestible Correctness II, Kenny Schachter Gallery, New York
• 2006 - Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston, Model Boy (solo)

Keywords

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