By Norman Koplas
Morning at Mike’s by David Slonim
“There was never a time I wasn’t aware of the joy of making art,” says David Slonim. Growing up not far from the New Jersey shore, he benefited from a “wonderful elementary school art teacher who invited several of us to be part of an art club after school.” Thus inspired, he went on to major in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then to become a top advertising and editorial illustrator.
Despite that success, says Slonim, the rise of computer graphics in the late 1990s not only saw his work opportunities diminish but also left him with a yearning. “I had more in me that I needed to express,” he says. So, encouraged by his wife, Bonnie, he started oil painting in his spare time. “I took an easel outside and began painting scenes from central Indiana, where we’d moved in 1990,” he recalls. “I focus especially on subjects that have to do with living in harmony with the land. The open space here gives your mind a place to feel free in the same way the ocean does.”
Since 1999, Slonim’s rural scenes and landscapes in an expressionistic style have won him an avid following in galleries and museum shows. The 42-year-old artist is also a respected children’s book illustrator, and he teaches painting workshops every other week in the studio he rents in a 100-year-old office building in downtown Anderson, IN. “I am so thankful that I can support my family doing something I love,” he says. “That’s a gift, pure and simple.”
He is represented by Simpson Gallagher Gallery, Cody, WY; Piñon Fine Art, Littleton, CO; Betsy Swartz Fine Art, Bozeman, MT; Timmons Galleries, Rancho Santa Fe, CA; www.davidslonimfineart.com.
Upcoming Shows
Participant, C.M. Russell Auction, Great Falls, MT, March 18-21.
Three-person show, Piñon Fine Art, April 3-29.
roup show, Simpson Gallagher Gallery at the Potomac Hunt Club, Potomac, MD, May 8-10.
Featured in January 2009