David Kapp

Truck Traffic (Colorful Gridlock in Manhattan)

1994

David Kapp is best known for his paintings of the contemporary urban landscape. His paintings have been described by Ken Johnson in the New York Times as having "a dreamy, mildly hallucinatory air and a mood of Hopperesque melancholy," reflecting the harsh kinetic beauty of the city itself. The format of the work tends to be vertical or square and the horizon line itself has been pushed beyond the edge of the canvas. Kapp's paintings have been described as having "the feeling of silence that follows traffic noise, or the emotional distance of standing behind plate glass." Writing in the opening text of "Working the Grid", Robert G. Edelman observes, "Kapp's struggle to get at what is essential to and in our collective environment and make it palpable is the magic that underlies these otherwise familiar city scenes. The urban landscape is seen as a microcosm of human endeavor, ambition, frustration and hope, but also as the substance for a painter to explore the nuances of his medium, and his ability to translate and transform his world into paint." David Kapp was born in NYC in 1953. He attended Walden School, Windham College (BFA, 1974), and Queens College (MFA, 1978). He received a Creative Artists Public Service Fellowship in Painting in 1982 and the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1985. His work can be found in museums and public collections throughout the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; and Foundation Paribas, Paris, France.