About David’s Work

David Owen Woods constructs three-dimensional compositions from lines and basic shapes. In a composition, he limits each object to geometrically elemental forms such as lines, circles, rectangles, triangles, and polygons. Based on his approach that he calls “elementalism”, the use of basic, archetypal forms creates a foundation that the viewer can instantly apprehend. As he composes each piece, David works to create an interplay between shapes, forms, and lines that contains complexity that is both built upon and constrained by the underlying elementary forms. David intends for this approach to produce work with an essential universality that resonates with every viewer’s innate aesthetic sense.

About David

Throughout my life, I have been blessed with good fortune and good influences. My earliest memories of my mom include an ever-present canvas and the scent of linseed oil in her art room. I remember my worldly uncle Tom taking our family to art galleries where we first encountered “modern art”. I was captivated by the freedom and daring of those artists.

David’s compositional technique might best be described as model making. In listing his influences, David includes the historical artistic movements of minimalism, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, mid-century modernism, but also the technical fields of aerospace photography, scientific illustration, and architectural model building.

At the same time, my dad’s career in aerospace took us to Cape Canaveral Florida where we entered the world of engineering, science, space exploration, and the cosmos. In New Mexico, when I was 10, I had met several astronauts while watching a test launch at White Sands Missile Range. In high school, I would cross paths with them again at Cape Canaveral, Florida where my dad worked on the Apollo project. One of my most vivid memories is standing on the shore watching the Saturn V’s thunder into the sky. There, a friend introduced me to photography which became my career.

After high school, I went to Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara where I majored in technical photography. After graduation, I worked at the NASA White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. My assignments included photographing the Space Shuttle Colombia when it landed at White Sand in March 1982. I also photographed the Viking Mars lander where our signatures were collected, microfilmed, and attached to the vehicle. My signature - albeit very small - now resides on the surface of Mars. During those years, I used my spare time to paint landscapes, always keeping a camera at hand to capture images that would become paintings once back at home.

1985 brought a change in my career and a move to Tennessee. I began work as a medical photographer. Instead of outer space, the lens was turned 180° to the inner space of the human eye. My work was imaging the biological device of seeing. I explored how the eye captures images, and in the process, I helped people preserve that precious ability.

During that time, my art also changed. The focus turned toward the inner, more conceptual world. A return to the modern brought back the language needed to express this perspective. As I searched for the right expressive approach, one style in particular – minimalism - kept drawing my attention. Initially, I resisted. I had been taught to value precision and detail. But the understated simplicity of minimalism resonated with the artistic aesthetic developing in my imagination.

So, I arrived at my current approach to art through elimination, letting go of methods that simply were not right for my expression. Where this led me was not what I expected, but also was not a surprise. My approach was eventually influenced by digital technology, the aerospace domain, and the aesthetic of the photographic image. I am still trying to shake off the old programming, but at least now I see it for what it is. I now feel free to move about the cabin.

For me, technology will always be a part of the process. My primary creative spaces have become Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, familiar digital spaces that I use to create what will become three-dimensional reality. I am so privileged to be able to spend my life seeing like a photographer, wonder like a scientist, create like a technologist, and express my creativity and wonder as an artist.