[Press and other stuff ]

Spring 2010
A featured artist in Studio visit magazine
Coming Soon

March 2010
Portland Mercury
"His paintings fall somewhere between a horror movie backdrop and Vincent Van Gogh, playing with light on starry, shadowy nights."

March, 2010
from artist and independent curator, Rob Evans
"David's captivating night imagery has a wonderful sense of mystery and warm/cool interplay of various incandescent and natural light sources. His magic realist paintings pull in the viewer with an eerie tension or feeling that some strange drama is about to take place or has just ended - engaging and powerful work!"

March, 2010
from artist Aron Wiesenfeld
"David Carmack Lewis's paintings are an entryway into the unknown. In the peace and solitude of night, secret narratives crawl out of their hiding places like nocturnal animals. They seem to arise, dream-like, out of the consciousness of the forest itself: a lone piano on a path, small fires spontaneously erupt in the darkness. We are the foreigners here, shining our flashlights and headlights, but we will find nothing until we abandon artificial light and venture into the darkness, with all the danger and magic inherent in it. David's work makes me feel the freedom of night; I shed my civility, and hear the calling of something ancient. I revel in the promise of a return to something unnameable, but deeply familiar."

December 3-10, 2009
A featured artist on Artdoxa
Artdoxa.com

October 23, 2009
Featured on Vivianite Artists Portal
Vivianite.net

October 5, 2009
Featured on Paintblog.ca
"One of my favourite things about night scenes is the opportunity they present to play with lighting effects. David Carmack Lewis takes full advantage of this opportunity, using campfire light, street light, star light, porch light and more, and combining all of this dramatic lighting with cinematic compositions to create some truly incredible works of art."

February 21, 2008
article in Grants Pass Now
"David Carmack Lewis is a storyteller, and his medium is oil on canvas. His knowledge comes from having studies arts, design, and illustration at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Studio Arts at Virginia Tech, along with painting and printmaking in Cardiff, Wales. However, what sets Lewis apart is his unique ability to paint scenes which impart the feeling of having just missed seeing the main character. One is left to come up with his/her own reason of why the person left, which means that every viewer’s imagination becomes part of the painting as they add their own perspectives to the stories Lewis tells. The use of warm illumination combined with intense shadowing imparts the idea of being gathered around an old fashioned camp fire, but on occasion a sign of modern times will be found, such as a warning sign or water tower. This leaves one to wonder where the story begins and where it ends. Lewis possesses the ability to capture, in one moment of expression, the common thread that links all periods of history and all different cultures. The paintings of David Carmack Lewis have been displayed at well over forty-five auctions, solo, juried, and shared exhibitions. His paintings are now on solo exhibit at the Firehouse Gallery until Feb. 29."

February 9, 2006
article in Eugene Weekly
"...David Carmack Lewis is another Portland artist who makes a strong statement, albeit in a very different vein. His seven large paintings are narrative and symbolic in character. Lewis started out as an illustrator, and his realistic treatment of subject matter that can veer into fantasy retains an illustrative quality. What is depicted remains intentionally ambiguous, however, so that the viewer is free to interpret the scene and its symbolic elements according to his or her own system of associations. Lewis's main character is an older man, slim, sharp-faced and benevolent, who undergoes various incarnations in each painting. Sometimes he sports a saint's halo, speaks with a raven, or perches in the magic circle of a toy train in his library. Sometimes he is the puppeteer who directs Cupid's arrows to his own heart. Priest-like, he blesses a gold fish before releasing it to the sea. In You're Welcome the setting suggests both America (white picket fence, flag) and Mediterranean Europe (checkered tablecloth, wine, guitar). The somewhat younger protagonist appears to be comforted by the older waiter and musician in a scene which the absence of explicit symbolic elements renders quite moving."

2004
featured on the Cover of Open spaces magazine
Volume 6, Number 3
open-spaces.com