SANTA MONICA, CA.- Leslie Sacks Contemporary presents an exhibition, celebrating the life and career of abstract artist David Shapiro (1947- 2014). This exhibition features paintings, works on paper and editions from 2001-2007, highlighting his most prominent series: Clearing, Origin and Return, Seer-Actor-Knower-Doer, Savasan and Mudra.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, David Shapiro was inspired by Asian art in New York museums and the influx of Eastern philosophies in the New York avant-garde culture of the ‘50s and ‘60s. This influence is apparent in the titles that he chose for his works and for his series, Anecdote and Parable, Mudra (Buddhist hand symbols), Savasan (final resting pose), Seer-Actor-Knower-Doer and Origin and Return. Shapiro declared that the title Origin and Return, “refers to the continuous and cyclical process of perception and feeling. There always has to be a first step, but never an ending.” Shapiro’s emphasis on the cyclical process of perception and feeling is evident in the layering of panels, color, line and textures yielding compositions that meld harmoniously in sequence, while also maintaining their uniqueness.

A compatibility between color and texture was critical to Shapiro’s practice. He incorporated Nepalese and Japanese papers, burlap, nylon, and screen-printing to produce highly elaborate and dynamic canvases. Though the production of these canvases and the creation of the patterns are heavily steeped in Eastern philosophies and traditional Japanese painting, Shapiro’s color choices were open to random environmental influences. Shapiro believed his true palette to be black/white/gray/natural, but discovered color in daily experiences and chose it without preconceptions. He sought the emotional response that color can generate. Ultimately, Shapiro wanted his art to affect the viewer on a psychological level, and to “be a meditative process of getting in touch with your own consciousness.”

David Shapiro studied briefly at the Skowhegan School of Art, in 1965, ultimately receiving his B.F.A. from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1966 and his M.F.A from Indiana University Bloomington, IN, in 1968. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Shapiro is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., Solomon R. Guggenheim, N.Y., the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Mint Museum in Charlottle, North Carolina, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., the Aichi Prefectual Museum of Art in Nagoya, Japan, and the Kunsthalle der Stadt in Nuremberg, Germany.