David X Levine:
Painting with Pencils

On view October 14 through November 18, 2017

In a decade that is focused on celebrity, it is a pleasure to introduce to Washington an artist who is under the radar and very simply raw talent, passion, and creativity. gallery neptune & brown is pleased to present recent drawings by David X Levine.

Levine was born in Boston in 1962, and has been drawing full time since 1998. His vivid, labor-intensive colored pencil drawings range in size from the intimate to the monumental. Mixing popular and high culture, Levine creates a formal vocabulary that inhabits a subtle but richly optical space, generating many contemporary associations. All of the work has some kind of humor tempered with a profound seriousness. Levine points out, “It is both meditative and physical to create lush surfaces with colored pencils.” His palette is derived from colors throughout art history from Giotto frescoes to 1960’s pop era bright acids. These sophisticated drawings have a surface of waxy sheen, with strong compositions that echo the iconic minimalists with sculptural strength. With the same smart & funny optimism that Levine approaches life, he likewise approaches the paper as he makes his first mark.