by
John Bach
STRANDED WITH A FLAT tire
in an unfamiliar neighborhood of the Bronx, David FeBland, A&S '71, decided to
leave his wife in the rental car and walk to a nearby corner.
That is when it happened. Standing beneath an enormous railroad trestle, he encountered
something that moved him deeply. FeBland couldn't shake the images from his mind
and would return to that exact spot a year, to the day, later.
Once a political science major at the University of Cincinnati, he is today the New
York-based fine artist whom The New York Times has referred to as on "the leading
edge of the new urban realists." Though he has no formal background in art and
admits that the only time he set foot in a fine arts building at UC was to "hunt
for women," FeBland is known for paintings The Washington Post calls "brash,
bizarre and beautifully painted oils of life in the Big Apple."
Hanging his show at the Carnegie Visual Performing Arts Center in Covington, Ky.,
earlier this year, the wiry-haired painter explained how a flat tire in the Bronx
led to the piece he titled "Life is Beautiful".
"I was underneath this fabulous 19th-century superstructure," he says,
twirling a hammer in his hand. "There was this marvelous sunset that was beginning
to take place, and the light just shot through a very small opening between two buildings
and flooded this entire area with a fabulous color. It lasted about five minutes,
then it was gone.
"I loved it, and I wanted to capture something about that visual language. I
waited a full year to return so that the sun would be again in exactly the same spot
under the same lighting conditions."
Though ideas rarely incubate for so long, FeBlandís creations do tell very specific
stories. His work, a critique of urban American culture, often depicts peripheral
characters on the outskirts of mainstream society. "They are outsiders looking
in, and Iím observing outsiders who are trying to find a way in," he says as
he sinks a nail into the gallery wall.
Next page | Paintings capture the parallel worlds of
New York City