David was born and lived the first part of his life in a small town west of Toronto, Canada. He attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York for his post High School education. New York city was the best educator for the artist, a fertile place to encounter other artists and develop his talents in musical, literary and visual arts.
Following the departure from formal education and emergence into the early stages of the SOHO art gallery explosion of the early seventies, David incorporated a number of his family names into DAZA, which he exhibited under until the late eighties by which time this name was used exclusively for all work produced and published as a writer of short stories, and any musical material.
All visual art is under the name David.
During the early eighties David lived full time in New York once again, but by 1985 maintaining himself in a studio in southern Vermont. Over the next decade David wandered around the United States lingering in many places from coast to coast, fortunate to journey across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Intermittently David returned to New York and to Vermont. It was during such a lengthy stay in New York that David contributed several short stories to the satirical magazine INSIDE JOKE which published satire and absurd comedy until the publisher opted to move on to other projects in the late eighties when, paradoxically, the country needed satire more than ever. He continued to exhibit paintings and drawings in all media, receiving commissions for portraiture of people, their homes, children and pets. David participated in a partnership with professional writer and Interior Designer Barbara Walker to design and reproduce art objects for retail sales at the Guggenheim museum in New York. This partnership was very fruitful for David and lead him to many other avenues for his creative expression. He increasingly found himself involved in decorative home and commercial painting, as a muralist and faux painter, painting glazed walls and embellishing furniture for decorators and clients primarily north and south on the east coast of the United States. Eventually this southern migration led to Florida, where the majority of his commercial work is now being done.. While living in South Florida, David became involved in set painting for the Hollywood Boulevard Theater, and from there occasionally for productions at other theaters from Key West to West Palm Beach when time allowed.
In 1998 David was commissioned to reproduce in its original scale and detail Monet’s painting SUNSET which is a permanent installation in Paris at The Muse de L’Orangerie. The painting as an original is approximately 20 feet long. It is concave as an installation in Paris, but has been executed in fine detail as a flat, wall painting, on canvas in oil. David traveled to Paris to study the original carefully,and researched the painter Monet and his technique to prepare for the task. The patron of this undertaking has been a major support for David in south Florida, with a wide collection of his original work as well as many wall treatments and murals in their home.
David was commissioned by the first Presbyterian Church in Pompano Beach to embellish the extensive expansion project,the offices, conference rooms and vaulted ceilings with various faux finishes and some mural painting. In 1977 David organized a group of painters, sculptors, musicians and writers to collaborate on a communal art performance and exhibition space. It was located in Oakville, Ontario Canada and was called Open Studio. In 1983 David was grouped once again with a dozen diverse artists in Manhattan New York under the name of Zewam Amola, creating and publishing a one time magazine under that name. In 1999 he again was instrumental in leading the creation, promotion and performance of an artists group of "Randomist" artists, followed early in the year 2000 by another group incarnation under the familiar name "Open Studio", organized with the Weston resident and Argentine poet Laura Blanck. They contributed to the highly publicized and successful Cystic Fibrosis fund raising Art and Fashion Ball 2000 in a live performance of Open Studio Artists hosted at William‘s Island Country Club on the Beach, in Aventura, Florida. David has done extensive decorative painting along the Gold Coast in South Florida, murals and decorative wall treatments,faux finishes,also called "glazed walls". He has also reworked furniture finishes into a wide range of finishes and patinas. These can be seen at either of his other two sites.
As a Hollywood Florida resident,David enriched several businesses downtown with either decorative painting and/or murals, including the interior design and construction of three building façades in the interior of the stage like two storied "Deco Hotel" in a local nightclub, as well as window treatments and murals inside the building and out. David was one of the artists invited to exhibit in Palm Beach, Florida’s’ Society of the Four Arts 62nd Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings. In the early summer of 2001 David had one painting featured in Fort Lauderdales' annual Hortt cmpetition, and one in the Salon de Refuse exhibit hosted by the Broward Art Guild in Fort Lauderdale. His work has been featured in City Link magazine, exhibited in the City Link/Artserve annual summer show in Fort Lauderdale, and contibuted his work to exhibits at the Broward Art Guild. During the 2002 and 2003 years David executed fabulous and varied styles of decorative glazed wall finishes, wall and cieling murals, paintings in a variety of styles,wood grain matching and furniture embellishments in a few homes of a substantial scope in terms of design and size.
In early 2003 Argentine poet and artist Laura Blanck took over the Chocolate Moose Music Cafe in Davie. David was asked to rework the interior character of the cafe and technical aspects of the stage shows, and with contributions from mnay other artists in the area they created a unique coffee house/live music venue for local talent and musicians from all over the US needing a stage in south Florida. Other artistic talents of the community were developed in addition to the live music, such as fine art, dance exhibitions, jewelry shows, and poetry readings. David also produced many musicians'shows for the stage, featuring individual artists locally and nationally as advertised in regional publications City Link and New Times. Enormous contributions from participating Broward Folk Artists Guild members Rob Koppelman, Robert Mason and others plus the support of the genius of Michael Bianco made many shows simply outstanding. The Saturday Open Mic night with a few frequent return guest hosts such as Russ Holt thrived during this period. This lasted until Laura sold the business in mid 2004, ending the experimentation and artistic fun we all had there.
Ongoing projects including a mural for a new Miami restaurant, as well as a number of interior decorative projects in private homes and condominium suites in the area have kept David very busy. Reproducing paintings by established collectable master artists and adaptation of others, which means altering their composition, has taken up most of his time in the past two years. In addition to this decorative work though David has made time to execute several paintings, some by commision and some in his own studio, and will attempt to mount an exhibit of his new work in the Fall season of 2006.
David lives in Fort Lauderdale and manintains a studio near the heart of downtown Lauderdale.
