Artist Statement

Bay Area native Dave Conkle is a painter, illustrator and photographer with a deep affinity for the earth and its’ varied landscapes, the delights of animal portraiture, and the truly limitless wonders of the natural world. He works in a wide variety of media and loves to experiment with new techniques.

His latest painting series are modern interpretations of the 19th century genre of botanical illustration, the primary source of scientific identification and classification prior to the advent of photography. In these new works Dave rethinks the classic small scale botanical illustration tradition by dramatically exaggerating the scale and proportions of his illustrations and trades the traditional quick sketching on paper for painstaking hand-carving and sanding the drawing onto large wood panels. He then spends many hours applying multiple layers of sheer pigment tints to the carvings, achieving his desired effects of color palette and dimension without obscuring the natural grain elements in the wood panels.

Dave Conkle happily does commissions of custom botanical carvings, animal portraits and illustration work of all kinds. To discuss your project ideas, kindly email him at: bigcitypeaches@yahoo.com