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Raw, poignant and profoundly honest, David Jon Kassan’s work aesthetically captures humanity in its true form. As an artist, Kassan acts as an empathetic intermediary between the subject he portrays and the viewer.
- Early Commitment
- A Clear Vision
- Model Behavior
- Drawn and Crosshatched
- Kasson’s Oil Painting Techniques and Process
- Color Intuition
- Graffiti Artist
- A New Maturity
“I’m stubborn. I believe in myself, and though I know I have a lot to learn, I’m confident I can do it,” says Kassan, who credits his success in part to the influence of his Romanian-Ukrainian immigrant grandparents’ determination, his father’s work ethic, and his mother’s strong will. His talent, he feels, can take him only so far: “I have to work...
Kassan feels that “painting is about understanding yourself.” He says that the route to discovery is “to paint and draw your life every day.” What goes into his work is the sum of his life experience and his unique way of seeing. Of his subject matter, he says, “My favorite part of the painting process is getting to understand my models and working...
Drawing, watching, talking — Kassan does whatever it takes to get to know his subject and uses all the information he gathers over a week or so of modeling sessions to convey his model’s personality. He has no difficulty chatting with the model while working. As he explains, “Everything I do is cumulative. It’s like seeing a person a mile away, com...
For Kassan’s preparatory drawing, he positions the model under artificial lighting that best captures interesting contours. He uses the shadows under the nose and upper lip as a guide when repositioning the model after five-minute rests between 20-minute poses. He begins with an area he calls the facial triangle — eyes, nose and mouth — the sitter’...
For a painting surface, Kassan uses a Dibond panel, a product used by sign makers and made from an aluminum composite material that doesn’t warp. The smooth surface is essential: “I want my paintings to mimic life, not a painting. A canvas weave, even if the weave is very fine, says ‘painting,’” remarks Kassan. He applies two coats of acrylic gesso...
For Kassan, painting is intuitive. Not having to think about color himself, he finds verbalizing about the process to his students to be challenging—though he works hard to do it well. “I think of color in tiers,” he says. “I see a color note that’s kind of a red and I ask, ‘Is that a cool red or a warm red?’ If it’s an orange-red, then I go more t...
Kassan emphasizes the dimensionality of his figures by juxtaposing them against the abstract formalism of his urban abstract and graffiti-inspired backgrounds. As a former graphic designer, he likes combining the broken typography of graffiti and street advertisements with the naturally occurring, found abstractions and designs he observes all over...
Now 33, Kassan acknowledges that a level of understanding comes with success. While studying he was impatient: “I wanted everything I have now,” he says, “but I wanted it in a year.” Like many young artists, he was looking for the magic bullet that would make him a better painter. He gained patience by observing some of his more mature students in ...
David Jon Kassan (born February 25, 1977 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American painter best known for his life-size representational paintings, which combine figurative subjects with abstract backgrounds or trompe-l'œil stylings.
David Jon Kassan (Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1977) is a contemporary American painter best known for his life-size realist portraits. The paintings combine figurative subjects with abstract backgrounds or “tromp l’oeil texture studies,” [1] reportedly inspired by Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. [2]
286K Followers, 7,672 Following, 2,435 Posts - David Jon Kassan (@davidkassan) on Instagram: "Facing Survival Exhibition | @hmhou July 12, 2024 painting with an empathic eye… 💍 @slevenson".
David Jon Kassan is an internationally recognized contemporary American painter best known for his life-size representational paintings, which combine figurative subjects with abstract...
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David Jon Kassan (born 1977 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is a contemporary American painter best known for his life-size realist portraits. The paintings combine figurative subjects with abstract backgrounds or “tromp l’oeil texture studies.”
