In the art world, you are either defined as “Trained or an Outside Artist”. 

Very few galleries, curators and critics have ever heard of a third group, Acquired Savant Syndrome, which I am one. 

Everyone has talent. 

Others are fortunate to discover what they can do at an early age, while the rest often take a while. 

For me, I found my skill with the brush after a boating accident. 

Five years ago, I fractured my back and injured both wrists. 

A week after the accident, I started dreaming in vivid colors with hands moving paint in a frenetic manner. 

I woke up and started to paint. 

I found myself working prodigiously and decided to research how this was possible. 

I had never touched a paintbrush my entire life. 

I was diagnosed by the late savant psychiatrist Dr. Darold Treffert with “Acquired Savant Syndrome” when dormant savant skills emerge after a brain, spinal injury, or disease, and this allows people to perform at a prodigious level, creating an “accidental genius”. 

I am now among the 50 of his documented cases around the world and the first documented spinal fracture. 

As an artist, I paint with three guiding principles: color, texture, and pattern. I take the great contrast in all three to make a single painting from smooth to streaked, squared to rounded, and shimmering crimson to deep blue. 

I also take inspiration from colors and painting structures I see in my dreams. 

My process often starts from the floor and then to the wall. 

By looking at the negative space, I can plan what I want to compose before taking the colors out of the shelf and lining them up to get a tangible perspective of my dreams. 

I mainly work on daring acrylic abstract paintings that portray passion and unpredictability. 

Viewers tell me they find themselves immersed in beautiful, riotous gradients with large scale graphic designs integrated in my work. 

My digital work is a direct extension of my physical art. 

New York Magazine Art critic Jerry Saltz recently critiqued one of my works called Aqua Vita and said- “David has no fear of scale. In this particular work, his Cézanne like style has great materiality and an expressionism aspect of flow.” 

Through my art, I support The Human Rights Campaign, Positive Exposure, Our Heart Speaks, and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.