During lockdown, and running low on watercolour paint,  I came upon a 70 year old set of pastels, given years ago by my mom from when she was a young art student in Detroit, and I fell in love with them.    It’s led to a lot of discoveries, a hunt for papers, supports,  and different marks of pastels, and distinct learning curves happened.  I feel more than ever that through colour and my own unconscious delivery, I’ve been allowed to express my state of being with radical clarity, like an open book with a neon pointer.   Emotionally, I’m an open book.

David West works mainly in drawing and painting. Born in Detroit, he's been associated with art, music, performance and experimental theatre. Besides art 'plastique', he's been an artist's equity actor, writer, producer of exhibitions and events, curator, and illustrator. Drawings, paintings, prints, and artist books are in both private and public collections, such as the Bibliothèque Nationale Français, the Smithsonian Institute, Musée du Dessin et de l'Estampe Originale, Gravelines, and the Gibson Guitar Museum in Nashville Tennessee. Having lived and participated in the underground 'scenes '  of Chicago, New York City and San Francisco from the punk era thru the nineties, he's lived and worked in Paris since 2002. His books on musicians in rehearsal, and of portraits of the nineties early aughts spurred a retrospective of such works, in 2016 at "Strange Neighbour" in Melbourne Australia. Recipient of the Pernod Liquid Art Award, and Gibson/Lucky Strike "Guitart" award. His current practices include pastels and paintings on velvet.