David Elliott
One of the principal Canadian artists associated with the late 1970s/early 1980s return to figuration, David Elliott is perhaps best known for his large, often monumental oil paintings on canvas, which are included in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. More recently, the artist has re-oriented his practice towards the making of the small collage boxes, that once served as maquette studies for his paintings. Intimate, often sentimental, with a touch of dark humour, they have the appearance of vignettes from a stage or film production. Their diminutive scale belies their emotional and psychological power.
Born in Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1953, David Elliott has lived and worked in Montreal since 1977 and has exhibited his paintings both nationally and internationally for over 40 years. In 1993 the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City organized David Elliott: Pintura, a retrospective of his work. Recent solo exhibitions include Million Dollar Bash at Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran (2017) and Seventh Heaven (2020) and Sweet Spot (2021) at Galerie Nicolas Robert.
Elliott also curates and writes about art. His feature article Grave Nowhere: The Unstoppable Paintings of Philip Guston appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of Border Crossings and he recently organized an overview of R. Holland Murray’s work in the context of Black History Month at the Fondation Guido Molinari.
Recent Exhibitions
Chapitre III - Group exhibition
From April 4 to May 25, 2024
A Symphony of Untold Depths - Group exhibition
From July 15 to September 2nd, 2023
Sweet Spot
From December 11, 2021, to January 22, 2022
All Kinds of Time
From June 18 to July 23, 2022
7th Heaven
From February 1st to March 14, 2020
