Dave West was born and raised in South Wales and is now settled in Balbriggan, North County Dublin. He works across the areas of Fine Art, Art Tuition and Public and Community Arts.
Dave’s Fine Art practice is divided between the traditional genres of still life and landscape in oil and soft pastel.
He has had 20 solo exhibitions to date in both private Galleries and Art Centres including Draiocht in Blanchardstown and Iontas Arts Centre in Castleblaney.
Dave has exhibited widely in group exhibitions including exhibiting with many of the most prestigious societies and academies in Ireland and the UK. He has been a regular exhibitor during the past decade at both the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Ulster Academy. In the UK he has shown with the Royal Society of Oil Painters, The Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, The New English Art Club and the Royal West of England Academy.
Dave is a member of, and exhibits regularly with the Irish Pastel Society and the Dublin Painting and Sketching Club. He shows with the UK pastel society and in 2013 won the Schminke Award for his nocturnal scene. Much of Dave’s landscape work is executed ‘en Plein-air ’meaning that he paint directly from the subject (in all weathers!) It’s a process very much concerned with capturing mood - not just about a certain place but the interaction between the space, the artist, and the atmosphere.
In 2018 and 2019 Dave was guest tutor at both the Dublin Plein Air festival and at ‘Art in the Open’, Europe’s largest Plein-Air painting festival held annually in Wexford. During the 2017 festiva,l Dave won first prize (Gold Mayoral Award) for his large painting at Kilmore Quay. This piece was subsequently acquired by Wexford County Council.
Dave’s work is in numerous Private and Public collections including the Office of Public Works, the Dept of Finance (Northern Ireland) and Fingal County Council who have a series of 7 of his paintings hanging in Balbriggan Library.
He has taken part in several residencies including Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Cill Rialaig and Fingal County Council’s Boathouse project.
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