Crawl 2010: Art For Men

I admire the energy, passion and practicality of David T. Cho. David loves to pain and he has a unique big, bold, brash style to which everyone was responding very favourably at the Crawl. He is also a boxer. One wall of his studio reflected his two passions: his paintings were huge very close-up portraits of fighters, many of them showing a swollen eye, cut lip or ruined ear.

The art world and market is heavily feminized. It is male at the top of the pyramid, where big egos thrive, but the bulk of the visual art world, from my experience, is populated with female artists and buyers. David produces art that he loves, but it just happens to serve men who like art. Very few artists produce work that appeals strongly to men and those that do, and who advertise and market strategically, can do very well. David has no website that shows this work.

David also does Pet Portraits, and this is another reason I admire this young man. Unable to support himself with the work he likes to do, he has created a second line for income that does well and keeps him learning about paint. His pet portraits are done in his distinctive style; again, they have that masculine feeling of strength. They are not the soft, fuzzy sentimental pet portraits that you so often see.

All in all, this young and charming man, two years out of Emily Carr University, is enjoying a very successful artistic practice. Nice work, David!