David Avery’s black and white etchings seek to connect a 400 year old traditional practice with the concerns of our modern predicament. In the past, prints were often used to address contemporary issues of the day, cloaking a pointed message in the trappings of classical mythological or religious themes. Avery repurposes these themes yet again to invite viewers to make their own connections between the follies of our present day and those of the past.
David Avery continues to exploit the constraints inherent in traditional black and white line etching in his studio in San Francisco for his own suspect purposes. Over a period of thirty plus years he has developed a painstaking technique allowing him to create these intricately detailed etchings which involve influences ranging from Albrecht Durer and Francois Rabelais to Max Klinger and Alfred Jarry. His work has been included in over 200 competitive and invitational exhibits which have occasioned several awards, and he is included in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, and the Stanford University Library among others. In addition, his work has been noted in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and most recently was reviewed in the Washington Post.