One of the principal Canadian painters associated with the late seventies and early eighties return to figuration, Elliott is a self- prescribed postmodern collagist with strong affinities for nineteenth-century symbolism and twentieth-century metaphysical painting. Elliott chooses and arranges images with both rigor and vitality that serve to evoke feelings of Romanticism from ages past. For Elliott, the deliberate choosing of imagery is just as important as the way in which said images are arranged on the canvas. Inspired by such works as the assemblage pieces of American artist Joseph Cornell and the counterculture aesthetic of the 1960’s and 70’s, David Elliott sees the world in pieces, and in turn desires to patch together its various elements as one onto the canvas – a space that he once referred to as his “metaphysical spatial container.”
David Elliott was born in 1953 in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He has lived and worked in Montreal since 1977. In 2004, he was the subject of a 30-minute documentary produced for Bravo Arts Television Network and in 1993, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City organized David Elliott: Pintura, a retrospective of his work. Elliott has exhibited both nationally and internationally for over 35 years. More recent overviews include Instant Karma at the Saidye Bronfman Center for the Arts (2002) and La Chambre enchantée at the Musée Regional de Rimouski (2012). His professional accomplishments have been acknowledged in David Burnett’s Contemporary Canadian Art and Robert Bernier’s La peinture au Québec depuis les années 1960. His large-scale canvases are included in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia as well as corporative collections such as Hydro Québec, Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec and Loto Québec. Elliott’s work has been funded by both the Canada Council for the Arts and le Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. This support includes senior artist residencies in New York City (2010) and Paris (2013).
COLLECTIONS
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston ON (Canada)
Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa (Canada)
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montréal (Canada)
University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge AB (Canada)
Centre d’exposition de Baie-Saint-Paul, Baie-Saint-Paul QC (Canada)
Collection Loto-Québec, Montréal (Canada)
Collection Hydro-Québec, Montréal (Canada)
Collection Senvest, Montréal (Canada)
Collection Prêt d’oeuvres d’art du MNBAQ, Québec (Canada)
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal (Canada)
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal (Canada)
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Canada)
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax NS (Canada)
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Montréal (Canada)
EDUCATION
1977-79
MFA Concordia University, Montréal (Canada)
1972-76
BFA Queen’s University, Kingston ON (Canada)