Curiously engaged and not quite brooding beneath a dark ponytail with black denim and boots is the artist DavidR XV. This is a man with a vision of bringing his voice to life across images, books, and music baring sharp details and dynamism. In recent years, he focuses on portraits of emotional and sometimes majestically menacing characters, which builds upon the repertoire of his early years. Sketches, paintings, and drawings from this time explore his fascination with people in peculiar states of mind as well as the occasional bursts of technological creatures of seemingly intense power and agility.
At eighteen, his first gallery presentation took place and marked a turning point toward accelerated arrivals of positive fruition. Nearly all his artwork have been composed with ballpoint pen. Since 2003, the breadth of his talent continues extending into music with five solo albums in tow. He creates an expansive collection of chill and hauntingly fascinating soundscapes and operates a record label while executing design and photography support for the album art. The covers of The Never Ending Emergency (2007), Noise Reduction (2004), and Le Funeral Lounge (2004) were much like glimpses into frames of a graphic novel.
At The Hive Gallery and Studios, DavidR XV displays a vertical grid of narratives with animated, black and white classic tones with robust characters. Concise technique with sags and wrinkles upon bones and muscles of the faces depicted by the artist expresses a level of trust in the delivery of his visual storytelling. At this venerable and charismatic hub of the city's art scene, his drawings gave access to exhibition planning, promotional graphic design and an assortment of gallery responsibilities. Over the past six years, he has gradually contributed to refining the eclecticism of the Hive by serving as a conduit for fellow artists seeking to exhibit their work.
2012 was the year he illustrated in Christopher Cobb's Van Wyck and the LA Buzzsaws, which unveiled the artist's tastefully uncanny snapshots of science fiction and mysterious intensity. A year later, he produced Nerv Cell: Collected Works 2013 - 1999 with his company, Enditions Publishing. Through 142 pages, a retrospective of Buzzsaws contributions, stately poses in portraits and earlier drawings demonstrate DavidR XV's testimony to honing one's blade of ingenuity.
While driven to incessantly issue his creations across various platforms and inspired by ambitions of sharing his craft in majestic proportions, brush pen and oil paint are the next utensils of choice. He feels the need to stray from ballpoint to increase productivity and broaden the scope of subjects presented in his work. Whether published in print or sound, DavidR XV will continue his whirlwind in Los Angeles and everywhere around.
Photos: Dillon Kroe. Biography: Alejandro Valtierra
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