david normal

I launched my career at the age of 16 making punk flyers in San Francisco. Never being content with the prevailing trend, I quickly moved on to creating interactive theater parties. These events, created in the California counterculture millieu of the ’90s, were frenzied collaborative happenings that were seminal in their influence. “The Feast of Fools”, “St. Valentine’s Midnight Masquerade Debauch” and “The Secrets of Uranus” are a few of these productions.

I began the 21st century traveling through South East Asia in an effort to document trance and spirit possession ceremonies. The video and photos collected form the corpus of a film entitled: “Loose Spirits”.

Between 2003 and 2008 I devoted myself to 3D animation, and produced two short films: “The Bicycle Ride” (a tribute to Albert Hofmann) and “Pyramid” (a collaboration with Colin Angus), both of which are expressions of my deep appreciation for the psychedelic experience.

Since 2008 my primary focus has been on oil painting, creating such works as “The Pool”, “Chemical Imbalance”, and “The Human Tree” among others.

In the spring of 2010 I began to make ” The Illuminations” a traveling installation of glowing, self-illuminated prints based on my paintings.
The Illuminations have exhibited them in Europe and various locations around the United States, including a large scale installation at Burning Man 2010.

I live in Stinson Beach, California with my wife, April Lelia, an Indonesian artist.




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