David Shrobe

Grant awarded Spring 2013

Website:

http://davidshrobe.com/

Paris has long been an interest for my own work, not only for its birth of the avant garde and place for artists to show their work, but also for being a platform for artistic growth and freedom and a place of refuge for many artists of African descent. As an artist, I am particularly drawn to Paris to experience the city that so many misunderstood American artists found solace and inspiration.

Being able to experience so many master works of art first hand rather than through poor reproductions was truly a gift.
Seeing the original paintings, that have truly inspired and motivated my own artistic development and practice, in person was genuinely a benefit for me as a painter. It allowed me to see in real form what paint can do and how its limitations can be productive and helped assist me with establishing my own directional criteria.

Keith Haring – The Political Line was showing at the Musée d’ Art Moderne this summer. Keith Haring has always been one of the painters I admire for his blunt criticism of inequality and injustice around the world. To view this work in the context of a different political and social sphere also broadened my perspective.

I am interested in preserving remnants of memories and how we carry these fragments of the past into the present and even into imagined futures. So viewing Lorna Simpson’s work at Jen de Paume, I was able to see the ways in which she addresses some of these ideas.