Beautiful and Grimy: Painting by David Tycho
Urban Rhapsody #14, acrylic on canvas
David’s deep, grainy paintings are frequently hover just on the edge of abstraction. He frequently works with urban subject matter, portraying sprawling city streets and tall buildings in a way that is both beautiful and grimy, something like a real city.
Vital Gesture #15, acrylic on canvas
In older works, David explored larger, more gestural brush strokes, combining them with planes of monochromatic color. I really like the works in his Vital Gesture series, where, frequently, a single, dark, twisting brushstroke or knife-pull winds its way across the surface of a canvas. The visual effect is almost reminiscent of a highway snaking across a prairie.
The front page of David's website
David’s more recent works occasionally combine the tight, sharp, urban brush work with his earlier affinity for monochromes. There’s a lot of dark grey and black pigment here, but David’s use of highlights elevates it to an existence as a rain-slick road or a shining glass building. Check out David’s work on his personal website or his gallery, Canadian Abstract Art.
