Biography:
works in a variety of mediums not limited to stone sculpture- fountains, drawing, oil pastel, acrylic painting, adobe mud architecture, film production, and small-scale organic agriculture. David lives and works from his home/studio in northern New Mexico with his wife and daughter.
David’s family and work are incorporated into an overall artistic reality that he has set out to create since acquiring five acres of Arroyo Hondo land in 1999. David has since sculpted a two-story adobe mud structure quite literally with his own hands. Here he works nonstop year round in creating a unique fine art destination like no other. Two acres of wetland are being restored and enhanced as to create habitat for fish and birds, while enhancing the high desert oasis; the perfect setting for viewing contemporary sculpture. The land is situated on a centered highpoint at the bottom of the valley where the Rio Hondo River joins the Rio Grande River giving the Lubotsky studio a unparalleled backdrop of the Rio Grande gorges spectacular rock faces apposed by a spectacular panoramic view of Taos mountain and the Sangre de Cristo mountain range.
David Lubotsky’s sense of purpose overflows in his diverse command of the multimedia that he creates through. He is primarily self-taught though he has attended full time classes at the Northwest College of Art for film production and the Oregon College of Arts and Craft where he studied life drawing related curriculum. David became a member of the Northwest Stone Sculptors Association in the spring of 1996 while living in Portland Oregon and attending a stone carving symposium.
David Lubotsky is a contemporary expressionist with a passion to communicate through a variety of media. Stone sculpture has been the main focus of his work along with large acrylic paintings on canvas. Lubotsky’s subject matter reflects the seriousness for his work and intense love for art. Future Primitive expresses his modern day human struggle to manifest internal balance within nature’s timeless material order; greater defining the human purpose in a post-millennial age. Lubotsky’s artistic vision exemplifies our advanced technological age coming full circle with the world’s ancient multicultural foundations of myth. Together they form a contemporary synthesis of expression never before possible.
Lubotsky is a forerunner in a new generation of artists born into our time of overwhelming multimedia stimuli. Timeless abstractions observed in nature however, remain as Lubotsky’s direct source of design influence. Other than being directly influenced by raw natures diverse forms, further metaphorical meaning is given to the work: evolving themes such as the dualistic nature of mankind and the universe, liquid movement, time as structure to reality and the evolution of the soul. David emphasizes the internal human struggle for freedom and how our emotional/mental state of consciousness materializes our physical reality on a personal and societal level; call it karma. The circle is often a central element in much of the work for it’s universal symbology of eternal movement, life cycles, nature as a whole or as a passage from one realm to another. Lubotsky’s work is timelessly structured with much emphasis on line and simplified form. This uncluttered simplification gives his work a Zen-like purity. Much of the metaphorical meaning given to his work is culturally rooted in ancient Kabalistic thought geometries connecting the attributes of the human emotional state of consciousness to the eternal cosmos.Knowing the processes involved and energy invested in completing a finished sculpture can only further ones appreciation for Lubotsky’s work. He sculpts in a variety of stone including marble, limestone, basalt, sandstone, steatite, gypsum, serpentine, travertine, and an assortment of alabaster. Generally rough hand quarried or found stone is acquired which is odd shaped instead of blocked form. The direct carving process begins by evening out the surface of the stone so as to enable one to see any obvious fractures or sedimentary layers that could dictate the finished form of the sculpture. Surfaces are often left in their natural rough textured state, which makes for pleasant contrasts with the otherwise smooth finished surfaces. The creative or subtractive process is furthered by shaping the stone through use of hand and in-line hammer, chisels, and also angle grinders with diamond or carbide cutting blades. No two stones are the same, so the processes differ from one stone to another. With some stones, David knows exactly what he wants to reveal while other stones require more searching by drawing, modeling, and or lengthy periods of time observing the stone. When the carving begins there is no going back only forward in transformation.
The next step is the refinement of surfaces by use of surface blades and rasps, which are like files (use of rasps makes for even surfaces). This can be observed by following the smoothes plane of the surface and consistency of the lines. This enables the viewer to experience the fluidity of the form. The final step is sanding through at least five grains to reach a finished polish. This takes much time and attention to detail. David currently does all the sanding by hand. Oiling or sealing the stones surface and preparing a base are the final steps in completing a finished work of art.
Plaster sculpting is the opposite to stone sculpting due to the building up of material verses stone sculpting is purely subtractive by the act of removing material to reveal the form. Lubotsky produces many small sculptures as maquettes out of found objects or clay. These serve as working models on a micro scale. Plaster sculpture enables Lubotsky to work in a massive scale where stone would be very difficult not to mention extremely expensive by comparison. The first step is to create an armature of wood that acts as the skeleton. Plaster soaked fiber mesh then blankets the form. The surface is repeatedly plastered until the desired thickness is achieved. Surfaces may now be further shaped and refined by removing plaster with large files and rasps. The sculpture may then be treated to protect it from weathering when exposed to the elements. The completed sculpture is carefully transported to the foundry where a mold is produced. Large sculpture may need to be cut in sections in order to be transported or to make molds. Molten bronze is poured into the mold. Large works are then welded back together. A patina is given to the surface of the finished bronze to achieve the desired appearance.
David Lubotsky’s paintings are derived from his countless drawings and pastels. He has produced many small oil pastel drawings, some of which have been reproduced in a limited number of gi’cle prints. These pastels serve as small-scale models for large oil or acrylic paintings on canvas. Many of Lubotsky’s paintings lend themselves to sculpture. His paintings evoke certain emotions through in depth color relationship. The “Emotional Landscape series” is exactly this. Lubotsky also extensively works in black and white for its bold simplicity. Layering of paint along with smearing, scratching, and further drawing gives his works a multi-dimensional sense of depth; revealing the evolving search for balance or completeness that could only be found through conceptual struggle.
David Lubotsky has a vision of life that impassions his work for all to share. Few sculptors have aspired to the scale and diversity of form that Lubotsky does. He is conceptually beyond his years as a forerunner of a new generation of artists that incorporate their career in fine art with nearly every facet of their lives. ‘Art’ means to elevate craft beyond mastery; to innovate and expand on the roots of craft. David Lubotsky innovates meaning and purpose by incorporating the fine arts of painting and sculpture along with architecture, landscape design, agriculture, and family life.
David is currently creating prototypes for a manufactured line of contemporary stacked block fountains in various shapes and sizes. These serve as focal points for medetational spaces or destinations in the landscape. He is also working on a wall sculpture series, some incorporating moving water. In the future, David envisions large-scale landscape sculpture, some of which are a larger scale of existing works. The studio will be expanded along with storage space for artwork enabling agents or clients to view an ever-expanding inventory of art on sight.
David Lubotsky’s work may be purchased through personally authorized agents and from his studio directly. A Website is under construction; Lubotsky.com. David may be reached for further inquiry by e-mail, [email protected] or phone 505-776-8980 mailing address, P.O.B.#362 Arroyo Hondo, N.M. 87513.