David ‘Mr.StarCity’ White

David ‘Mr. StarCity’ White

Before There Was Life, There Were People I Never Met, features a dozen large scale new paintings, poetry and sculptures, by self-taught artist David ‘Mr.StarCity’ White (b. 1979, Brooklyn, NY). David White (a.k.a. “Mr.StarCity”) is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work spans a diverse range of media across painting, sculpture, poetry, music, performance, film and photography. Growing up in Brooklyn during the ’80’s, White spent his childhood and formative years creating large-scale murals in memorial to his many friends lost to violence.

White draws inspiration from his poetry and the truth of the everyday, painting with sand and paint, figurative and expressionistic works. For this series, White painted with his hands, each ‘stroke’ the proportion of his palm or finger, resulting in works that are full of impasto texture and sourced from both real and imagined histories. His storytelling and playful paintings are complimented by his lyrical poetry, each painting taking its title from a line from his poem.

Before There Was Life, There Were People I Never Met was painted over a span of three years and is about aspiration for a ‘simpler future,’ memory, invention, and shows his penchanct for postivity, optimism, and spiritual musings. Specifically, the works evoke rememberance of a bygone era and romace of everyday life, each work a scene of dramatically cropped faces of American cinema.

“David ‘Mr.StarCity’ White incorporates his research into human emotion, real-life experiences and encounters with strangers, friends, and family to break down stigmas around mental and emotional well-being. His work features subject matter stemming from his origins, memories and experiences as a Black man growing up in the urban American landscape while tipping a hat to his family’s Southern roots. While expressing the human condition, White continues to address themes that live within the shared experiences of socio-economic identity and contemporary culture while identifying and unmasking societal ills” as written by Rebecca low.