"Covenant", 2005, Öl und Kreide auf Papier , 30 x 30cm

David's World

I have never had the feeling that I could achieve anything with paintings and drawings, they are just the last pounding of the waves regarding my sensations towards the world. Somehow I do, of course, hope that they show the essential. I might, however, be wrong.“

That's how I met David Dibiah. His art is the immediate expression of what moves him as an artist. In all his creative phases drawing has been the preferred experimental field to develop and work through his ideas. With pencil and paintbrush, with carbon and pastel chalks he fixes impressions, clarifies his ideas and finally bears down on those visual expressions that are deeply ingrained in his memory. Stroke by stroke, sheet by sheet he plays through all possible variants of finding an image, not least by examining the works of his most important model (Vincent van Gogh). What's special about David is the fact that he has never been afraid of colors. He does not only depict the traditional African continent but also the interchange between African and European art. His art works refer to that moment in art history, when the art of Africa meets the German art scene of the 21st century. This reciprocal relation between the two continents can be sensed in his image concept.

David: „When I draw, I step out of time. I am in genuine time, I enter a different sphere. I live very strongly and in the awareness of events that happened thousands of years before us. I am not concerned with a political way of thinking because my way of thinking transcends social forms. It is true that art is an adventure, every new work presents itself as a wonderful albeit not necessarily serene adventure.“ 

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by Jolanta Trebacz (Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin)