David Spence was born Aug. 6th, 1944 As a child, he played with Plasticine clay, making figures and drawings of the human anatomy. After high school, he entered the U.S.C.G. Soon after military, David moved to New York City where He gained extensive Artistic knowledge in technique, style, art history, and the art world in general. He was associated with two galleries on Madison Ave. and much of his free time was spent studying sculptures, paintings and drawings at MOMA, the Metropolitan and other near by museums and the show rooms of Sotheby's and Christy's auction houses, allowing first hand, up close examination of the many world famous artworks. Soon after arriving in N.Y.C., David took residency at the old Hotel Chelsea on 23rd. Street in the later 1960's. And with a fresh revolutionary ideology shaping the world, David's passion in art excelled during these periods.
His mentor, painter Andrew Shunnery whom he'd befriended in 1968 and continued for ten years learning every piece of knowledge he could until Shunney's death in 1978, whereas David remained working in Shunney's studio on Nantucket for another two years perfecting his art. David returned to the south to live in North Carolina for a short period before moving to Knoxville, TN. In 1980 dedicating his energies almost entirely to wood and marble sculpture. After refining his skills in those mediums, he moved to Houston, TX. And immediately began working in bronze. Once he'd mastered the bronze precess, he decided to open his own privet foundry to cast his sculptures. In late 1984, while working in Mexico on a series of paintings and bronzes, he met his to be, Wife, Martha. At the end of that year, David and his wife took off to live in Tuscany, Italy for a year, where he worked with the local terra-cotta, perfecting his style where he'd later cast in bronze. David returned to Virginia for a short period to continue refining a series of drawings, before moving to Mexico for seven years. During this period he perfected the necessary foundry skills to create a series of over145 bronzes. David felt it was time to return to the states to promote his sculpture career and settled inVirginia. Soon after landing, He opened a backyard art foundry,over seeing new castings for two years. Once achieving his goals, He moved to Dallas where he continued casting larger bronzes and doing gallery exhibitions.
In 2002, David moved his family back to Mexico, while he ventured in a series of several outdoor large-scale monumental works and fountains commissioned by private clients for ten years, after which feeling exhausted of commissions he decides to move his family to San Antonio, dedicating studio time to a series of abstract sculptures and paintings that he started in the early 1980's. On days he feels a need to get away, he takes to expressing with a new series of mystical- eccentric erotic charged paintings he;s recalling from his dreams over the past thirty or so years.
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