David Onri Anderson is a Tennessee-born French-Algerian Jewish artist, musician, and curator. He graduated from Watkins College of Art in Nashville with the AnnyGowa Purchase Award in 2016. He has had solo exhibitions at Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Blaa Galleri Copenhagen, DK (upcoming), Harpy Gallery in Rutherford, NJ, David Lusk Gallery in Nashville, TN, Atlanta Contemporary, amongst others. In 2020 he published a book of drawings with
Zürich-based artist book company, Nieves. His work has been reviewed, exhibited and collected internationally with works in permanent collections including the Soho House in Los Angeles, CA and Nashville, TN, The Joseph Hotel, and the Metro Arts Library in Nashville, TN, amongst others. Anderson is founder and curator of an artist-run space called Electric Shed Gallery in Nashville, TN (2018-present). His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Artnet, BURNAWAY, DailyLazy and more.
Artist Statement
My paintings are impressions of sensory and spiritual experiences with
images. I employ experimental, non-objective and intuitive approaches to process and materials, with influences from Jewish mysticism and tantric art to cosmic philosophy. Through the process of expanding, deconstructing and echoing a variety of forms, I seek out the inherent alchemical possibilities in colors, materials and repetition. Recent subjects are fed from my practice as a gardener and nature lover in Tennessee, as well as engaging in personal esoteric practices such as communicating with angels and spirits. I use patterns from organic life forms, extracting dyes and textures from elements such as leaves, flowers, fruits, and nuts and unfolding stories alluding to a universal spirit or mythology. I seek to become more and more sustainable in my practice through the incorporation of reusing
materials, foraging, and making his own tools and pigments from my garden and local surroundings in Nashville, TN.