David J. Marchi (born July 21, 1956) is an American visual artist, known for his acrylic abstract works. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and galleries, earning him both critical acclaim and admiration from art enthusiasts worldwide. His mission is to bring awareness between the intersection of art and science in healing and well-being now known as “art therapy”. This involves using creative processes such as painting, drawing, and music to improve mental and physical health.
Initially, Marchi ventured into the world of advertising and marketing, He worked for serveral comapnies including Grey Advertising, a global advertising and marketing agency in New York City; as CEO and founder of Bulldog New York LLC, a New York marketing agency; a director and president of Ryan Partnership, an advertising services company in Westport, Connecticut;[3] and a start-up joint venture with Omnicom to develop Tracy Locke Partners, an international marketing services company in New York City. He worked on renowned brands like Heineken, PepsiCo, and Pizza Hut.[4][5][6]
Marchi then went into painting after a boat accident in 2015. He is unlike most visual artists thriving in the world today. The contemporary abstract artist did not even have an inclination for painting most of his life until his boat accident that resulted in a fractured back and an injury on both wrists.[4][6]
After that life-changing event, he started having dreams and unique perspectives and was inspired to paint them all without any formal training, coaching, and direct influence. He simply woke up one day and knew he could paint.[7]
In 2016, Marchi's first art exhibition was at the Agora Gallery in New York City, with a six-artist group exhibition featuring the newest in textured abstraction, hyperrealism, and trompe-l'œilsurrealism.[8]
In 2018, he was diagnosed by the late Dr. Darold Treffert with Acquired Savant Syndrome, where dormant savant skills emerge after a spinal or brain injury or disease in previously non-disabled persons. He is one of only 50 documented cases world-wide. Their newfound skills can be categorized into music, calendar calculating, mathematics, art, and spatial or mechanical skills. People diagnosed with this unique condition often find a way to transform their newfound skills into a form of passion.[9]
Marchi's lack of formal training turned out to be a strength rather than a hindrance. Liberated from the confines of traditional artistic conventions, he approached his work with a sense of uninhibited exploration and fearlessness. With each brushstroke, Marchi unleashed his emotions onto the canvas, creating abstract works that spoke directly from his subconscious.[6]
The three guiding principles of his artwork are color, texture, and pattern. In these, he finds the vibrations between great contrasts and can take a single painting from smooth to streaked, squared to rounded, and shimmering crimson to deepest blue.
He has attended several artist residencies, including the Berlin Art Institute in Berlin, Germany,[14] Casa Na Ilha in São Paulo, Brazil,[15] and Château d'Orquevaux in Orquevaux, France. Marchi was accepted into the revered residency at the Dune Shacks in Provincetown, Massachusetts, living in the same shacks, and walking in the same sand dunes as E. E. Cummings, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and more.
Aqua Vita critiqued by Jerry Saltz in 20219 Squared, 50 x 50 in.
Residing in Berlin in 2019, when he took a walk towards the Berlin Wall on Chausseestraße, he noticed brass rabbit silhouettes, which were a tribute to the rabbits who lived between the east/west wall created by artist Karla Sachse. This is where he found the inspiration for a series called “Run Rabbit Run.” Each of the 6 paintings has an image of a rabbit pin-pointing the exact location people made a successful escape to the west.[16]
During a visit to Sag Harbor, New York, Marchi had the opportunity to meet Shannah Stern, the widow of photographer Bert Stern (1929-2013). Following a long friendship, Shannah invited Marchi to access their attic, a cherished sanctuary that held deep significance for both her and Bert. This gesture was particularly significant as it marked the first time, she allowed an outsider into their personal space. Inspired by the atmosphere and emotional connection surrounding this intimate location, Marchi seized the opportunity to create an acrylic on canvas painting, titled Bert's Attic.
Marchi's artistic endeavors have garnered significant attention, including positive reviews from renowned figures such as Pulitzer Prize and New York Magazine art critic, Jerry Saltz. In 2021, Saltz, while examining Marchi's work, particularly highlighted the piece titled Aqua Vita, and praised its distinct qualities. He observed the presence of "Cezanne-like" veils of color that characterize Marchi's artistic style. Drawing comparisons to the great abstract impressionists of the past, Saltz commended Marchi for his fearless approach to scale, indicating that he fearlessly embraces large-scale compositions in his creations.[17]
In 2022, Marchi's work titled “9 Squared” was hand selected by curator Eric Shiner, former director of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh to be in the first ever LGBTQIA+ exhibit called “We Fancy”,[18] celebrating LGBTQIA+ artists at the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery including former students Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Cadmus and more. Marchi was interviewed as an exhibiting artist, by Allison Green, for the Art Students League.[19]
Marchi one of the pioneering artist/teachers at Treffert Studios, a newly established creative space in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. With a profound commitment to empowering neurodivergent individuals, Marchi plays a crucial role in helping them discover their passions and express their unique talents. By providing a nurturing environment and guidance, he grants these individuals a voice and a platform to showcase their strengths to the world.[21]
In the spring 2024 issue of Gagosian Gallery, Marchi discussed with Ashley Overbeek how he has utilized art as a form of medicine.[22]
Art colonies are organic congregations of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, who are often drawn to areas of natural beauty, the prior existence of other artists, art schools there, or a lower cost of living. They are typically mission-driven planned communities, which administer a formal process for awarding artist residencies. A typical mission might include providing artists with the time, space, and support to create, fostering community among artists, and providing arts education, including lectures and workshops.
Frank Philip Stella was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career before moving his studio to Rock Tavern, New York. Stella's work catalyzed the minimalist movement in the late 1950s. He moved to New York City in the late 1950s, where he created works which emphasized the picture-as-object. These were influenced by the abstract expressionist work of artists like Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. He developed a reductionist approach to his art, saying he wanted to demonstrate that for him, every painting is "a flat surface with paint on it—nothing more", and disavowed conceptions of art as a means of expressing emotion. He won notice in the New York art world in 1959 when his four black pinstripe paintings were shown at the Museum of Modern Art. Stella was a recipient of the National Medal of Arts in 2009 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the International Sculpture Center in 2011.
Blackbear Bosin was a self-taught Kiowa/Comanche sculptor, painter, and commercial artist. He is also known by his Kiowa name, Tsate Kongia, which means "black bear."
Jerry Saltz is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2006. Saltz served as a visiting critic at School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York Studio Residency Program, and was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney Biennial.
Anni Albers was a German-Jewish visual artist and printmaker. A leading textile artist of the 20th century, she is credited with blurring the lines between traditional craft and art. Born in Berlin in 1899, Fleischmann initially studied under impressionist painter Martin Brandenburg from 1916 to 1919 and briefly attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg in 1919. She later enrolled at the Bauhaus, an avant-garde art and architecture school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1922, where she began exploring weaving after facing restrictions in other disciplines due to gender biases at the institution.
Charles Ephraim Burchfield was an American painter and visionary artist, known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of Burchfield's paintings, archives and journals are in the collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. His paintings are in the collections of more than 109 museums in the USA and have been the subject of exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as other prominent institutions.
Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting:
Silvermine is an unincorporated community in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States that extends along the Silvermine River, across three southwestern Connecticut towns: Norwalk, New Canaan and Wilton.
Philip Grausman is an American sculptor, known for his portrait works.
The Holy Virgin Mary is a mixed media painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996 that utilizes elephant dung and pornographic images. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000. The subject of the work, and its execution, caused considerable controversy in New York, with Rudolph Giuliani – then Mayor of New York City – describing Ofili's work as "sick". In 1998, Ofili was the first black artist to be awarded the Turner Prize. The painting was sold for £2.9 million in June 2015, and was gifted to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2018.
Jacob Collins is an American realist painter working in New York City. He is a leading figure of the contemporary classical art revival.
James David McNitt is an American painter and photographer. He has worked as a news photographer for United Press International (1974), a freelance marine photojournalist (1975–1982), and as a contract photographer, writer and editor for Newsweek International Special Projects (1982–2002). Since 2002, McNitt has concentrated on digital printmaking and mixed-media paintings, especially images that advocate awareness of climate change and other environmental issues.
Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo; he studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After seeing Barnett Newman's exhibition at French and Company in 1959, he gave up musical composition and enrolled at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York in Manhattan, New York. Poons taught at The Art Students League from 1966 to 1970 and teaches at the League.
Jeffrey Lynn Koons is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least two record auction prices for a work by a living artist: US$58.4 million for Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013 and US$91.1 million for Rabbit in 2019.
Arnold Blanch, was born and raised in Mantorville, Minnesota. He was an American modernist painter, etcher, illustrator, lithographer, muralist, printmaker and art teacher.
Carl Schmitt was an American painter, etcher, pastelist, and writer.
Hamilton Hamilton was a painter and etcher, known mostly for his landscapes of the American West. Born in Oxford, England, he lived most of his life in the Eastern United States. He painted landscapes in New York, Connecticut, the American West, England, and France. He also painted portraits and drew illustrations.
Herbert Jacob Gute was an American watercolorist. As a graduate student he was a staff artist for the Yale excavations at Dura-Europos, in Syria.
Revington Jessup Arthur, was an American artist and educator. He is known for abstract oil paintings, watercolors, and graphic design. He taught at the Chautauqua Art Summer School from 1956 until 1986.
Lula Mae Blocton is an American abstract artist and painter and emeritus professor of East Connecticut State University. A University of Michigan alumna, she is the second Black graduate to receive a fine arts degree from the university. Her work is exhibited throughout the United States and internationally.
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