David M. Churchill is a native Maryland artist whose career spans three decades. He is a self-taught painter who mastered the difficult medium of watercolor early, rapidly pushing the medium beyond its theoretical limits while intentionally avoiding the customary approaches that often result in soft-edged pastel images typical of many watercolor practitioners. From the beginning, his paintings have been built on a solid foundation of drawing and design and not upon whimsical dabbling with the brush. His vividly realistic images of rural Maryland and Pennsylvania are carefully rendered to convey the most basic essence of his subjects and not the superficial prettiness and nostalgia that appeal to other artists of this genre. He achieves this effect by stripping away everything that is not essential to his composition, sometimes eliminating even the original subject and leaving only a suggestion of its existence. He consciously seeks to celebrate the beauty of the commonplace while avoiding the obvious, a balance few artists are able to achieve.

Striving to create ever more penetrating images, David soon introduced a new element into his painting methodology. Extensively studying the work of master artists Andrew Wyeth and Robert Vickrey, he hit upon the idea of combining an egg tempera approach with his already unconventional use of watercolor. Using an emulsion of egg yolk and distilled water as his medium with the highest grade pigments available, a technique dating to the 15th century, David strengthened his artistic execution with masterful translucent detail. But technique, no matter how clever or accomplished, doesn’t make a painter an artist. In his estimation, an artist is one who can study the world about him and perceive a certain transcendent “otherness” about it. It may be a moment of sunlight illuminating a snow covered road or a turkey buzzard’s shadow skimming across a gray-green hill in winter. Regardless of its unexpected yet fleeting appearance, David is able to lock it into his consciousness, savor it for days or even months, then carefully reconstruct that very moment for others to experience.

An example of this phenomenon is a subject that David explored endlessly over thirty years, his friends Norman and Evelyn Henley. David first met this hard working, elderly couple in the summer of 1973 on their small farm along Rt. 99 in Howard County. Their special friendship over the years allowed David to literally have the run of their home and property at all hours of the day and evening. Early on, he painted a single portrait each of Norman and Evelyn, but thereafter explored their lives symbolically in carefully rendered images of their house, the nearby barn and outbuildings, and even the delicate flowers that bloomed in the small greenhouse that Norman built for his bride of 60 years. Many drawings and paintings grew from these treasured visits that provided an almost unending source of inspiration until these gentle people passed away. David continued to visit their farm occasionally after their passing, but no longer sensed their lingering presence as he had before. On a recent visit in late October, he was astonished to find the house and literally everything manmade completely gone with no trace whatsoever of its having ever been there. Only the gently rising hill that David used to study and draw from Evelyn’s rear kitchen window remained. A close study of “Hay Barn,” located a short distance from their property, will reveal the scythe that Norman (and Evelyn after his death) used to clear weeds adjacent to this hill. It is a small tribute to his two lost friends.

In the 34 years since Churchill began his career as an artist, his reputation and list of accomplishments have grown. In addition to having shown his paintings in the finest galleries in Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis, his work traveled in 1983 to Narita, Japan, in a group exhibition representing American Landscape painting. In 1986, his career was celebrated in American Artist magazine, a leading periodical for and about practicing professional artists. Churchill’s work has been included in major collections including those of Gannett, Inc., the USF&G Corporation, and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. His imaginative use of his chosen medium and his unique ability to convey his special vision of the world ensure his future as a major American artist.