WORKSHOPS
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David Ellis, drum painting project v2.0 (installation detail), Lump, Raleigh, N.C., 2004; Dimensions variable; sign painters enamel on cow, deer, and sheep hide; modified welded pig sculpture by Denny Rollins; NYC subway tokens, coins, and bells, modified Rane tm 56 dj mixer, technics 1200 record player, brass horn; amplifier; analog vinyl record; speakers; acrylic discs; vacuum motor; hide glue; gourds; rubber tubing and rubberized cloth; brass, copper, and steel; bellows and springs; wood and paint cans. Image courtesy of Roebling Hall, New York. |
Who is
David Ellis?
David Ellis was born into a family of musicians in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1971. By the age of 12, he had developed a passion for art. Ellis expanded his improvisational artistic language while listening to the sounds of early New York hip-hop music, and painting his graffiti on the walls of his family’s barns. He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, and later moved to New York, where he received his BFA at The Cooper Union in 1993.
In 1999, Ellis formed The Barnstormers, a collective of New York and Tokyo based artists who painted murals on barns and structures throughout his native North Carolina, using a graffiti vernacular. Ellis is represented by New York’s Roebling Hall Gallery, where he recently displayed work in a solo exhibition, Dozens, adding to the list of one-man shows at other venues including Cincinnati’s Contemporary Art Center and Sam Francisco’s Fifty24 SF Gallery.
His work has also been included in group exhibitions at such notable institutions as P.S. 1/MoMA in New York, Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut.
How can I meet David Ellis?
Local artists interested in working with David Ellis on a site-specific installation at the Huntington Museum of Art from Dec. 1 through Dec. 12, 2008, can do so free of charge. Contact HMA’s Education Department to set up a time by calling (304) 529-2701.
Meet the artist during a free party with DJ at 7 p.m. Dec. 12, 2008, at the Huntington Museum of Art. The recently completed installation by David Ellis will be on view at this time.
Want to check out David Ellis’ work online?
Check out the following websites:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=szZihBAuJts
www.youtube.com/watch?v=whlQk7sf8Lk&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOMAOmOyG-g&feature=related
Want to know more about David Ellis? Read on ...
Brooklyn-based multi-media artist David Ellis uses his work to interpret music and sound. He specializes in paintings, sculptures, and interactive multi-media installations that emphasize rhythm and euphony, revealing his affinity for both hip-hop music and a graffiti-influenced visual vocabulary. 
Peculiarly for one of the art world’s brightest young stars, Ellis admits that he prefers music to painting, stating that, “art is so institutionalized, it can make people feel not invited. Music has movement. It can cross borders.” And so his work, both painting and sculptural installation, focuses on the universal properties of rhythm and kinesis, appealing to everybody’s feet-tapping abilities.
Ellis works in a variety of diverse media, although is well known for his motion paintings, photographs taken throughout the progression of a painting that are compiled into a time-lapse animation later set to sound. His installations include wall-mounted “drum paintings,” assemblages of ordinary objects such as paint cans and paintbrushes that he transforms into working drums that are mechanized to play songs. Larger site-specific installations again incorporate painting and sculpture, Ellis creating spaces full of discarded objects included oil drums, old typewriters, recycled beer bottles, all rigged to play themselves, filling the room with orchestrated rhythm. And for the artist, the creation of his work is just as important as the final product, Ellis allowing gallery and museum goers to witness the formation of his pieces as his process becomes performance.
David Ellis is a Walter Gropius Master Artist. The Walter Gropius Master
Artists Series is funded through the generosity of the Estate of Roxanna Y.
Booth, who wished to assist in the development of an art education program
in accordance with the proposals of Walter Gropius, who designed the Museum’
s Gropius Addition, as well as the Gropius Studios. The Museum is indebted
to Roxanna Y. Booth’s son, Alex Booth, for his participation in the concept
development of the Gropius Master Artists Workshops.
David Ellis
Exhibition: December 12, 2008, -February 22, 2009
Opening Reception: 7 p.m. December 12, 2008
Installation Dates: December 1-12, 2008
