DFN Gallery is pleased to present “New Paintings” by David Shevlino. These recent oils on canvas and panel include the gritty depictions of urban landscape that Shevlino has become known for, as well as traditional figurative paintings in a contemporary context.

Working in both small and large format, Shevlino explores diverse vantage points around New York City to find the geometric forms created by the interplay of buildings, streets, cars, figures, sky, water, and light. He is both spontaneous and contemplative in these works - using quick, painterly brushstrokes and solid swathes of color to portray both daily activity and “Hopper-esque” quiet moments. In Cars at Dusk, Shevlino takes an aerial view of city traffic. With no other information but the road and the cars, the subject becomes an abstract, rhythmic patchwork of color and light that evokes modernist painting.

In Full Sun, Shevlino reveals his interest in classical figure painting. Reminicent of Cezanne’s Bathers, he updates this image with a contemporary feel by placing a woman in a bathing suit, eyes closed and face up lifted to the sky in her own backyard. Neighboring houses appear behind her suggesting the ordinariness of her life, as Shevlino captures the light and heat of the midday sun.

As the artist explains, "These are realist paintings, but abstract in design, and I tend to be very painterly in paint application. The paint surface is very animated and there is a lot of stuff going on in the paint, like drips and such. The paint is very loose and heavily applied to very thin washes."

A native of New Jersey, David Shevlino studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Art Students’ League of New York. He received his BFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. This is his second one-person show with DFN.