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David Carmack Lewis — painting

Originally from Virginia, David Carmack Lewis studied illustration at Virginia Commonwealth University and in Cardiff, Wales. He started painting in Phoenix, Arizona in the early 90’s and showed work in Scottsdale (AZ) at Art One Gallery. He moved in Namibia en early 1999 and while there, showed work in the Hout Bay Gallery near Cape Town, South Africa. After moving to Portland Oregon in 2000, the mood and atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest had a tremendous impact on his work. He currently shows at the Attic Gallery in Portland.
Carmack Lewis is represented in the Far Away exhibit, July 2010, but has shown at The Arts Center in the Around Oregon Annual exhibits of 2009 (Award winner) and 2010.
Carmack Lewis’ recent paintings are about the night and frequently small human efforts to hold it at bay. He employs a colorful palette portraying varied lights that vie with each other and the darkness for dominance. His work has a strong narrative nature; there is a dramatic tone to the work, as if some curious event has either just occurred or is imminent. As in “Times Transfixed (after Magritte)” we see a strange phenomenon while it is occurring, while in other instances there is quietness, full of expectation.
The use of night heightens a sense of drama and creates a kind of mystery. In addition Carmack Lewis uses at times an elevated perspective, so that the viewer feels slightly detached, floating above the scenes. Quite often some elements of trains or tracks determine the location of the image; again this feeling of detachment comes to into play. Travelling at night, hopping a freight train is an often romanticized element in 20th C literature. And then: what is that fox doing there?
David Carmack Lewis in his own words: “I tell stories. They may not be having beginnings or endings, but they are stories none the less. Like the stories told in medieval paintings, they are not about a plot. They are about the resonance that the described event has for the contemplative viewer. But the events described in my own work are generally just out of view. Something is about to happen. Or perhaps it happened a moment ago. I imply something out of the ordinary in the midst of ordinary circumstances. It is a reminder to look around with different eyes, as if mysteries and revelations might reveal themselves at any moment, emerging suddenly from the woods or out of an empty alley way”.

Visit David Carmack Lewis's website.