Artist Michael David has transformed personal trauma into powerful artistic expression, creating works that literally and figuratively reflect back at viewers through his innovative use of shattered mirror glass. The founder of the Yellow Chair Salon and former director of Life on Mars gallery met with critics on the final day of his exhibition "The Navigator" at Private Public in Hudson, New York, sharing insights about his decades-long career and artistic evolution.
David's artistic journey took a dramatic turn in 2001 when he suffered permanent nerve damage to both legs after being poisoned by overheated encaustic gases in his studio. This near-death experience became the catalyst for his "Fallen Toreadors" series, which he began creating two years later upon his return to painting. These works, inspired by Édouard Manet's "The Dead Toreador" (1864) and Francisco Goya's 14 Black Paintings (1820-23), serve as autobiographical self-portraits exploring themes of artistic mortality and resurrection.
The centerpiece of this series, "Dead Toreador (After Manet)" (2003), demonstrates David's ambitious scale and emotional depth. This quadriptych, measuring 109 by 240 inches in acrylic and mixed media on canvas mounted on board, presents a larger-than-life fallen figure against a streaked, scumbled background that echoes Abstract Expressionist brushwork. The work represents both a physical and artistic test of David's ability to create monumental self-portraiture after his health crisis.
David's earlier work reveals a consistent fascination with visceral materials and loaded symbolism. His "Self Portrait as a Golem" (1998), created in oil and encaustic on wood at 54 by 59 inches, references Jewish folklore's shapeless being made from inanimate materials like pigment and wax. The golem traditionally begins as a helper but becomes destructive, serving as a metaphor for David's evolution from toxic artistic processes to near-death creation. Similarly, "Berlin Gothic" (1981), a black cross encrusted with pigment and encaustic on wood now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, showcases his early interest in object-like structures and symbolic content.
The artist's current studio practice centers around what he calls "drawing with a hammer," using different parts of the tool including the claw and handle to score lines and crack mirrored glass surfaces. This destructive process generates intricate patterns, as seen in works like "Untitled 9" (2022-25), which combines mirrored glass with tar, resin, silicone, and oil paint on wooden panels. The technique brings to mind William Butler Yeats' lines from "Easter 1916": "All changed, changed utterly/A terrible beauty is born."
David's broken glass pieces engage directly with art historical traditions while maintaining contemporary relevance. His "Vanitas" and "Black Vanitas" (both 2023) reinterpret the still life genre popularized by Baroque Dutch and Spanish painters, who depicted skulls to symbolize life's transience. Instead of depicting objects, David's shattered glass literally mirrors viewers, compelling them to reflect upon themselves and their mortality.
"The Bride Stripped Bare" (2015-25) represents David's most ambitious glass work, directly referencing Marcel Duchamp's famous "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)" (1915-23). Composed of glass sections each shattered differently, with the title painted on rough found wood attached to the left side, the work transforms fissures into drawing lines. The piece simultaneously honors and potentially challenges Duchamp's legacy, embodying David's ability to hold contradictory viewpoints while adding personal elements.
Beyond his studio practice, David has built significant cultural connections and institutions. Between 2011 and 2014, he lived and worked intermittently in Atlanta, where he befriended William "Bill" Arnett, founder and chairman of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which collects and preserves work by Black artists from the Deep South. Through Arnett, David developed artistic kinships with Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley, whose influence appears in his integration of painted wood elements alongside distressed materials reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg's early Combines.
Returning to Brooklyn in 2014, David established Life on Mars gallery, named after the David Bowie song in response to recurring claims that "painting was dead." The gallery's name suggested either that painting was alive on Mars or that painters weren't from this planet. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, David launched the Yellow Chair Salon from his Brooklyn apartment, creating a virtual program offering online critiques in various formats after receiving overwhelming responses to critique prompts he posted on Facebook.
David's artistic approach transcends simple categorization, avoiding familiar tropes of parody or imitation while maintaining clear references to masterworks. His materials—mirrored glass, silicone, wax, acrylic, and resin—create works that function as both autobiography and art historical commentary. The integration of pain, anger, and love for others' work infuses his creations with emotional complexity that resonates across generations of viewers.
In an era where artistic originality often seems obsolete, David has achieved something both unexpected and necessary: creating works that reference art history while maintaining fierce individuality. His shattered mirrors force viewers into confrontation with themselves, making his art an active participant in the viewing experience rather than a passive object of contemplation. Through destruction and reconstruction, David has found a way to make art that truly gazes back at us, challenging our perceptions while honoring the artistic traditions that shaped his vision.
