DAVID ESTEY
Painting
David Estey is an improvisational painter in Belfast and recent President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA). He taught himself to draw and paint while growing up in northern Maine and attending high school in Belfast. He then got a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design, studied a year in Rome and explored Europe. He was drafted into the army and designed recruiting materials at Ft. Meade, MD during the Vietnam War. He earned a MSA degree in public administration from George Washington University and had a federal career in public affairs in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. He produced, exhibited and taught art throughout his career and studied extensively at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has had 28 solo shows and well over 100 group and juried exhibits in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Maine. His work is in private and organizational collections in 21 states and seven countries. He has made and documented over 11,000 pieces of art.
Of his work, he says, “I hope my Maine roots and many decades of study, experience and exploration are evident in a hard-won gravitas reflected in my work. My improvisations can be purely abstract but are often oddly narrative, sometimes inexplicable. I love that, because I want to be as surprised and intrigued as anyone else by what I make.”
