David Leblanc

We are hosting this show in our Shirley, MA gallery from Jan. 6 – Feb. 1, 2023.

ARTIST’S RECEPTION: FRIDAY, JANUARY 6 FROM 4:30-6:30 PM.

(This show was at the Bull Run, located in Shirley, MA, during the spring of 2022.)

David J. Leblanc — Artist’s Biography

davidjleblancart@gmail.com
www.david-leblanc.pixels.com

Studio: Amesbury, MA

As a boy, I would visit 7-Eleven with my father to buy a comic book before going to Lowell General Hospital where my mother worked as a registered nurse. On many occasions, we would have to wait for more than an hour in the car before her shift was done. Flipping through the pages many times, I would dive into these fantastic worlds, interpreting these epic adventures, asking many questions. I soon was drawing The Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Batman and conceiving characters of my own. Comic books fostered my indelible love for both reading and art.

I attended Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMass/Dartmouth) from 1985-1989 and graduated with a BFA in Illustration. During my time at S.M.U., my goals evolved from comic book illustration to painting (first, inspired by German Expressionism of the early 1900’s and later, American Abstract Expressionism). Several years later in 2005, I acquired my first studio space at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, MA. While there, my work took a turn when I found a book featuring all the major Superman covers from Action Comics from the 1930’s-1950’s. My Action Abstraction series, many large Pop-Expressionistic paintings (60×42), were inspired from that book, and evolved over time into the work you see today.

I have shown my Pop-Expressionistic paintings in a variety of venues including comic book conventions throughout New England and along the east coast; NK Gallery in Boston, MA; The Loading Dock Gallery at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, MA; Gallery 95 at Porter Mill Studios in Beverly, MA, and with Gallery Sitka in Shirley, MA.

I live and work from my home studio in Amesbury, MA with my wife, daughter, and our two German shepherds, Roxie and Ripley.

Artist’s Statement

As a painter, I draw my inspiration from the escapism of popular culture, primarily the format and visual composition of comic books. I use acrylics, graphite sticks, as well as, a collage of comic book fragments, covers and magazine ads to juxtapose the relationship between painterly abstraction and expressive figure painting. Frequently, I use paper and paint to create multiple framed panels to contain elements that are incorporated to serve as both stand-alone features contributing to the whole painting. I use comic book images to further focus my work in two aspects: (1) color, lines, movement that add to the composition and (2) specifically finding pieces of dialog and titles that invoke humor and curiosity that allows the viewer hints at perhaps a larger, untold story.