PROFILE

David Messick started painting in the 1960’s while engaged in a career in Telecommunications Engineering. For many years he pursued his interest in art as an avocation, while he worked around the world in places as diverse as Norway, India, and Saudi Arabia. Finally his craving for expression became so strong it led him back to school where he took a second B.A. degree in art and art history, and then continued his study of painting in several years of graduate studies.

His paintings show the influence of the early years of his life, which were spent in the southwestern mountains of Colorado, but include am underlying theme of symbolism. When he studied art history, he became fascinated with the abundance of symbolic references in the religious painting of the medieval and renaissance periods. During his travels he found a multitude of these symbols and was drawn by the strength of the images and the reoccurrence of their themes in different parts of the world, and in each culture’s unique style. These symbols, particularly symbols from nature, are thematic in his work, and the work evolves out of the strength of these depictions that have bound and supported civilizations for thousands of years. The resulting images hint of a connection between the historical base of his work and the fractured civilization of the late 20^th century.

His work is strong and individualistic, exploring the links of symbolism and relating it to his western heritage. He has exhibited his work in Europe, Japan, and the Middle East, as well as in the United States. His work is in private collections in England, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Germany and the United States. He is also represented in the collection of the University of California and the United States Air Force.