Art Re-emerging | Rotunda Gallery | November 3 – December 20, 2023
Artist Statement
I loved to paint and draw as a child. Then, after a half-century gap, art became a major passion again as I adjusted to life after Paediatric Neurology. Although my childhood paintings are all lost, I do have some small wooden sculptures from that time.
I like to think my art is still in the early stages of development. While still searching for my own style, every painting is a journey of discovery evolving over a few weeks or months. I am learning how artistic techniques discovered over the centuries can bring paintings to life. For me, this process also reveals how the brain creates the world we perceive. The challenge for artists is to explore this inner world of subconscious perception and communicate it to the viewer. Our connection with that inner world is strong during childhood but less easy to find with age. When this connection does come through on a painting it makes it more real than the world we see with our eyes or our cameras.
My most recent painting, Connection 2023, is a portrait of a wooden sculpture I made around 1968. While painting this I felt connected with my inner teenager, rediscovering the geometry of surfaces as they meet to form beautiful edges, something I first discovered as I carved the wood more than half a century ago.
I hope my work will help some viewers connect with their own inner world of visual perception and see the world in a more vivid and fresh way.
Biography
David Meek was born 1951 in Glasgow, Scotland, then moved to Wales at an early age. He won prizes for painting and sculpture during the early school years but then concentrated on Science and started medical school in Wales in 1969. He moved to Canada in 1976 to study Paediatrics and then neurology, then practiced Paediatric Neurology in Saint John 1982-2018.
Over the last few years Meek has learned painting and drawing from several workshops through the Saint John Art Centre and Sunbury Shores Art and Nature Centre in St Andrews. His main teacher has been Herzl Kashetsky. Others include Alexandra Flood, Deanna Musgrave, Melissa Kennedy, Dan Xu and Maggie Rose.
Meek’s paintings have been representational but he increasingly explores a more expressionist style. Some of his paintings are in private collections in Canada and Britain. He is an active member of the Saint John Art Club and has displayed and sold paintings in the club’s gallery in Brunswick Square.
Proceeds from the sale of Meek’s paintings will go towards the Saint John Art Club Scholarship fund to support students who are starting in post-secondary fine art programs.