David Cottingham is a London based artist who has developed a unique body of work on the themes of Dance and Landscape Abstraction in the media of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture.
He graduated from St Martin's School of Art in London, where he studied with William Tucker, Phillip King RA and Sir Anthony Caro. His artwork ranges from landscape-influenced, abstract paintings to large figurative, dance-inspired works on canvas and sculpture in Clay and Bronze.
He has exhibited internationally including New York, Chicago, London, Beirut and Rome.
Commissions include work for Cartlidge Morland in the City of London and work is also held in various private collections worldwide.
David is Hon Vice President of the Drawing Society of the Federation of British Artists.
“My paintings are abstracted improvisations on the two themes that most inspire me, the human body in motion and the spirit of place.
The Abstract paintings are also journeys into new spaces and landscapes, creating something unpredictable, beyond the subject. I like the work to evolve its own life and meaning. The main aim being to uncover ever deeper inherent structures, forms and emotions in the initial idea by using the language of paint on canvas in a very spontaneous way, revealing unconscious worlds and possibilities.
My Dance work has its roots in sculpture, which I originally studied. I apply the drawn or painted line with a free, layered approach, which creates its own unique forms and also mirrors the dancer’s movements. I have always loved observing the dancer, the single figure in motion and began to experiment by trying to capture something of the sensation of the dancer’s movement in space. This became a vehicle for me to express the real-time spontaneity and improvisation which is the essence Dance.
I now continue to work on both strands of painting and sculpture simultaneously as I find they inform each other and grow together”.
”Sensual and elegant, Cottingham’s works indeed reveal the world – the everyday passage of time, the infallible cycle of days and nights – as a vision of the sublime in nature and in the creative spirit. Abstract paintings with the rich hues of daybreaks and sunsets, lunar patterns and luminous reflections, Cottingham’s works are composed as strata of color, like the sedimentation of light or atmospheric landscapes. Smoldering reds, iridescent blues, long shadows and bands of shimmering light stripe the intricate skies of Cottingham’s canvases”. Exhibition Review of Abstract Paintings: New York
“Lost in an exhilarating choreography, David Cottingham’s dancers celebrate the joy of movement and rhythm, bending, swinging and turning their bodies skilfully, striking energetic and powerful poses, twirling in light and elegant moves. The effortless and smooth flow of gestures requires utter body control, a focussed concentration of force; practise and regular workout are preconditions to create an illusion of weightless floating in the air, leaving the ground and escaping gravity.
Sometimes in flaming compositions worked up in successive layers, reflecting a whole sequence of progressing moves, sometimes in reduced studies of a single pose, the shape accentuated by colour: David Cottingham’s dancers are filling the canvas, conquering it by their continuous rhythmical steps and gestures, taking their places in space and time”.
Dr Barbara Goebels-Cattaneo Review from Rome Exhibition