David Cheney
Born in Saskatchewan and raised in Calgary, David Cheney has had a varied artistic career. He has worked as a graphic artist, taught in Continuing Education programs and worked in diverse media, including watercolours, oils, drawing, mixed media, and computer-generated images. Overseas travel continues to influence and inform his work.
He graduated with a Diploma in Painting in 1984 from the then Alberta College of Art. He subsequently worked as a draughtsman during the day, and painted at night. A trip to Europe in 1982 was a turning point in his career. He became intrigued by Western culture’s basis in ancient Greece. He then studied watercolour painting at the Aegean School of Fine Art on the island of Paros (Greece). The painting works that followed, exhibited in Calgary as Banalities and Decorum (1986), expressed his concerns with our mythic past and neurotic present. The often monumental works depicted human figures among antique ruins, apparently incapable of responding to the disasters that surround them.
Cheney then earned an MFA at York University, Toronto, in 1990. His fascination with antiquity was further expressed in another Master’s degree in ancient Greek literature, completed at the University of Calgary in 1999. His thesis topic, “The Garden Ekphrasis,” found its parallel in subsequent artworks that explored abstract or symbolic flowers and gardens. He also used the traditional diptych form to both reinforce and undercut two juxtaposed images.
Travels on the American continent inspired Dreaming in Mexican (ArtPoint Gallery, Calgary, 2011). His painting styles have been compared with those of Julian Schnabel, Robert Longo and Georgia O’Keeffe. One of his techniques includes superimposing words over the images, which work to enhance, obscure or otherwise question the image below. An exhibit in 2014, also at the ArtPoint Gallery, uses this technique. Entitled Painting Autism, it introduces a very personal note, as the large-scale works explore the impact of raising his autistic daughter, Eva.
David is a member of the Alberta Society of Artists and his works have been exhibited in Calgary and Grande Prairie galleries for many years.
He graduated with a Diploma in Painting in 1984 from the then Alberta College of Art. He subsequently worked as a draughtsman during the day, and painted at night. A trip to Europe in 1982 was a turning point in his career. He became intrigued by Western culture’s basis in ancient Greece. He then studied watercolour painting at the Aegean School of Fine Art on the island of Paros (Greece). The painting works that followed, exhibited in Calgary as Banalities and Decorum (1986), expressed his concerns with our mythic past and neurotic present. The often monumental works depicted human figures among antique ruins, apparently incapable of responding to the disasters that surround them.
Cheney then earned an MFA at York University, Toronto, in 1990. His fascination with antiquity was further expressed in another Master’s degree in ancient Greek literature, completed at the University of Calgary in 1999. His thesis topic, “The Garden Ekphrasis,” found its parallel in subsequent artworks that explored abstract or symbolic flowers and gardens. He also used the traditional diptych form to both reinforce and undercut two juxtaposed images.
Travels on the American continent inspired Dreaming in Mexican (ArtPoint Gallery, Calgary, 2011). His painting styles have been compared with those of Julian Schnabel, Robert Longo and Georgia O’Keeffe. One of his techniques includes superimposing words over the images, which work to enhance, obscure or otherwise question the image below. An exhibit in 2014, also at the ArtPoint Gallery, uses this technique. Entitled Painting Autism, it introduces a very personal note, as the large-scale works explore the impact of raising his autistic daughter, Eva.
David is a member of the Alberta Society of Artists and his works have been exhibited in Calgary and Grande Prairie galleries for many years.