Dave is from Effingham, Illinois - the home of America’s second-largest cross.
The son of a Persian surgeon and a child of the Iranian Diaspora, Dave is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in painting, sculpture, drawing, and digital photography exploring narrative, ambiguity, symbolism, and the poetry of color and light. Being of two cultures in conflict, his work focuses on the search for self, institutional oppression, reconciliation, and the ongoing integration of digital and physical spaces.
He gained a degree in Applied Science, specializing in welding technology, before graduating with a BFA in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2020.
He is a member of various local arts organizations including Da Vinci Art Alliance (DVAA), The Center For Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), and The Fellowship of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (FPAFA), and teaches painting at Fleisher Art Memorial.
He lives and works alongside his very good dog Ruskin in Philadelphia.
“I like to play with ideas, words, and symbols, as well as explore the internal harmony or dissonance that can be created through those relationships.
I've recently begun making miniature landscapes with scrap electronics components, thinking about how the digital world and our material reality are converging as two overlapping terrains that we are learning to navigate and inhabit simultaneously.
The more stringently I try to define the meaning behind my work, the more my definition can limit a viewer’s personal experience. Instead of a concrete definition, I want to offer poetry that moves in multiple directions.
I invite others to connect with my work from their own context, in their own way, as well as engage with the shifting and overlapping layers of encoded narrative and symbolism.
In that way, I hope my work sparks conversations that could only happen in that particular room, at that particular time and place.
Ultimately, my work is intended to be a catalyst for viewers’ questions, thoughts, ideas, inspirations, processes, emotions, recognitions, and any reactions beyond what I could conceive of on my own.”
CV
b. 1988
Education
2020 BFA, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2016 AAS, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL
2006 Diploma, Effingham High School, Effingham, IL
Teaching
2023 - Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
Exhibitions
2025 American Dissonance, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Stumbling Through, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
2024 Perennial Visions VI, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
The Figure: Portraiture and Narrative, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
Fleisher Faculty Exhibition, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
PEOPLE POWER!, Philly Liberation Center, Philadelphia, PA
Dispatches from Kindred Worlds, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
At the Edge of Light and Darkness, CFEVA Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
That Figure in the Long-off Fog, CultureWorks, Philadelphia, PA
Solo Exhibition, The Green Line Cafe, Philadelphia, PA
2023 Perennial Visions V, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
126th Annual Exhibition, the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Rosemont, PA
PAINTED 2023, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
Summer at CultureWorks, CultureWorks, Philadelphia, PA
The Calm Before the Storm, CFEVA, Philadelphia, PA
Regional Juried Spring Open 2023, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
In Search of Something More, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
2022 Perennial Visions IV, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
CFEVA POST-Secret, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Selections from the Fellowship Collection, Clark Hill, Philadelphia, PA
2021 120th Annual Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2020 119th Annual Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2019 118th Annual Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Awards
2024 Juror’s Award (The Figure: Portraiture and Narrative)
2023 The Berthe M. Goldberg Award
2021 The Jimmy C. Lueders Painting Prize
2020 The Jimmy C. Lueders Painting Prize
Franklin C. Watkins Memorial Grant
Robert & Alice Carlen Memorial Endowment
Violette DeMazia Memorial Scholarship
2019 Charles Toppan Prize (Curricular)
Michael J. Capuzzi Jr. Memorial Endowment
