Artist David White

Abstract Expressionist | Narrative Landscapes of the Mind

As a painter, I draw deeply on personal experience—emotional memories, fractured dreams, and the ever-present tensions of life—to create works that go beyond aesthetic appeal. My paintings are psychological landscapes; they emerge from lived experience, from moments that often verge on the nightmarish, manifesting as metaphors designed to provoke reflection and conversation.

Over the years, these internal events—shaped by my own emotional journey—have taken form through paint, mark-making, and layered textures. Each work is a statement, a response, or sometimes a confrontation. They are not merely depictions but rather collisions of memory and place, with recurring motifs that speak to the Australian outback: its raw beauty, its silence, its violence. I see the outback not only as geography but as a metaphor for survival, fragility, and the emotional weight of being.

Influenced by surrealism and neo-expressionism, my work embraces graffiti-style brushwork, vivid yet restrained colour palettes, and a layered, often chaotic composition. It’s in this disorder that the viewer might find clarity—or discomfort. My intention is not to offer answers but to evoke response—to remind us that the wildness we see in the environment reflects the instability of the modern world we inhabit.

Using acrylics, oils, and resin on canvas or timber, I build surfaces that hold stories. Each painting becomes an ecosystem in itself: a space where the strong overpower the weak, where absurdity and beauty sit side by side. These aren't just artworks—they are survival stories told in paint.

David White is based in Australia and has exhibited nationally. His work has been described as both deeply personal and unflinchingly critical—offering viewers a raw, metaphor-rich experience shaped by life, memory, and the land itself