Balancing between figurative art and abstraction, between representation and transcendence, they draw us into a strange liminal world of underground reading chambers, archival vaults, jam-packed libraries... Far from being a mere stylistic choice or literal homage to reading and literature, the tomes that densely populate his canvases are symbols of something far more complex. In the artist’s own words:
‘Books have been present in my life forever, both as objects invading my daily space, as well as sources of information and stories. In my family, we collected books with the same relish as Molière’s Harpagon collected money! Books have a stimulating role for my imagination. The paintings of libraries are a metaphorical representation of my inner life: a single individual, sometimes contemplative, often erratic among his multitude of stories and the characters that constitute them. The theme also allows me to question our relationship to knowledge and information. How do we acquire it, how do we transmit it?’

David Gista cites a range of artistic influences: from Lucio Fontana, the founder of Spatialism, to Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Mark Rothko, Paul Cézanne, Cy Twombly and Tintoretto – but takes an avid interest in the work of his contemporaries and encourages emerging talent through his own teaching practice.
About the Artist
David Gista is a French-American painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and art tutor. Born and raised in Paris, he has divided his time between France and the USA in the past 20 years. In 1990, he graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Shortly after, the young Gista secured several prestigious prizes and awards (including the Prix de Vitry, 1993), and captured the attention of the Darthea Speyer Gallery in Paris and the Gary Marks Gallery in Chicago. After a residence in Chicago in 1996, the city became second home to the artist. While exhibiting regularly across the world, it is upon Chicago that the artist made his definitive mark, with such major commissions as a series of monumental paintings for the Hotel Sofitel Chicago Watertower (2001) and a mural celebrating Chicago’s service industry workforce in Terminal 2 of Chicago O’Hare International Airport (2005). In 2015, Gista founded the international artist group ‘BABEL’. A voracious reader and world traveller, David Gista has a fondness for jazz and the blues.
Details:
Where: Triptych: Global Arts Workshop
34 Andriyivskyy Uzviz, Kyiv, UKRAINE 04 070
+38 044 279 0759
When: 06.09 - 03.10.2018, Daily, 11.00 - 19.00
Free entry
Launch at 19.00 on Thursday 06.09.2018

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