Dave Pendleton Email & Phone Number

Dave Pendleton is the owner of Paint or Die Studio ltd., a Denver based fine art and design studio. Dave is a figurative painter who specializes in painting realistic large-scale black and white acrylic portraits. Dave's black and white work stands in striking contrast to the color-saturated movement of digital media. Using only black paint on a white surface to create beautifully detailed portraits in full grayscale, his work is decidedly realist in style but retains a painterly quality that lends his work an illustrative quality. Dave's work honors the old tradition of artist who paint, and offers an intimate and elegant opportunity slow down and appreciate a body of work that is both contemporary in its composition and uniquely narrative.In addition to portrait work, Dave's is oversees the art direction and production of illustrations for a children's books and a variety of design projects. Dave recently began producing a much simplified style work in contrast to his portrait work that uses the same medium, black acrylic on white board, but with a wonderfully simplified purpose and aesthetic. In a style he describes as painted illustration, Dave began painting a simple character he named Haiku as a way to allow himself to relax after the concentration involved in painting his larger work. Dave's Haiku paintings, like the Japanese poems of the same name, share the same economy of line and are both brief in their imagery. An original quote from Dave:"Well-done meat is like a loveless marriage, it's tough to get through, and there's no flavor."

Listed skills include Art, Fine Art, Photography, Graphic Design, and 11 others.

• Owner

  Paint Or Die Studio Ltd.

  2013 - Present

  Dave Pendleton is the owner of Paint or Die Studio ltd.Dave has been an active fine art painter for the last 15 years and has recently expanded his repertoire to include the art direction and completion of all illustration and design work that comes into the studio. Still, his driving passion remains painting and as his body of work increases, so does his enjoyment of it.In describing his work, Dave offers this:"Hiking through dramatic landscape is very similar to moving over the terrain of the human face. There is the same geography on the bridge of the nose as on the saddle between adjoining mountain peaks. It is the unique slopes and valleys of our faces that give us each our most valuable form of personal identification.Naturally, the appearances of our faces change over time, through age, weight gain or loss, hair loss, bar fights. Undeterred, the face remains remarkably faithful in its responsibility of providing our easy identification to anyone who can see it. Over time, however, our faces become more than just visual indicators. They become symbols for what we stand for, or maybe what we have done in our lives. If given a bit of context, the image of a face we recognize will recall an absolutely specific moment or emotion. It's the context of the painted face that turns it from being simply documentary, to delivering something with emotional grip.Painting a successful portrait depends on combining both the emotion and geography of a face. Though some aspects of my work may lean in the direction of rough photorealism, perfect rendering is not my point. It's the off-handed recognition of a painted face which brings around some unexpected bit of memory and feeling."

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  University Of Oklahoma

  Fine Art, Illustration, Design