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Artist Exhibitions:
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Artist Statement for David Monette
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In essence, I create my artwork in an attempt to somehow capture that narrow window of time in all of our lives when, as children, magic was as real as anything else. It is a time when faeries take old teeth leaving coins in return, when pencils are spaceships, when boogiemen hide in closets, and where beneath every leaf, secret things lie hidden. It is a time that is quickly lost, taken by the cynicism of age, the pessimism of our modern world, or the skeptical nature of science. In my work, I seek to offer an escape for the viewer back to the time before all of those factors scraped the magic away from their innocent eyes. This search began when I was very young, but commenced professionally in 1995 when I started to paint fantasy and science fiction images that would appear on books, magazines and collectable cards. This work has granted me the opportunity to create the fantastic creatures and environments that dwell in my imagination. Since that time, my objective has stayed the same but my toolbox of mediums has expanded from oil and acrylic paints to include digital software, like Photoshop and Painter. With the broadening of the instruments I use to make my art, I have begun to become more interested in crafting my own intellectual properties that combine both the written word and painted images for such venues as children’s and young adult books.
The image in my head drives me as I attempt to make the fantastic and imaginary appear as real as possible. I paint deliberately and carefully when I begin a painting in order to accurately capture that inner picture but I do so with an eye toward happy accidents that can be transformative if they are perceived early on in the process. I do this no matter if I am utilizing the traditional techniques of oil painting or my own method of digital painting.
Currently, I am working toward both writing and painting images for the children and young adult book markets. Some of these books retell old fables and fairy tales while others are focused on ancient mystical legends from around the world. All of these stories offer not only lessons for the readers but also a chance to step away from the cares of this world for a moment and peer through the crack in a door to another place. I see this endeavor as a natural evolution starting from a career where I was generating images for a project that I had little or no ownership over to one that is completely mine. It allows me the flexibility and freedom to produce the otherworldly images that I want to create on my own terms. Because of this, I feel that I am better able to carry on with why I decided to make art in the first place.
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