[Artist's Statement]

I tell stories. They may not have beginnings or endings and the story itself remains unclear, intentionally so. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these are invitations to stories.

I have always been an avid fan of fantasy, of horror, science fiction, and myths. My work may not reflect these interests directly but I believe it is the fantastic which can best evoke in us the rapt response to the unexpected which all too often we leave behind us in childhood. The events described in my work are always unusual. Sometimes they are fantastic and occasionally, clearly impossible. It is a reminder to look around with different eyes, as if mysteries and revelations might reveal themselves at any moment, emerging suddenly from behind a hedge or out of an empty alleyway.

The figures of my early work have, for now, vanished although the human presence remains tantalizingly close. They seem to have stepped out of the frame or pulled the blind only a moment ago. And the colors, which once were meant to capture the fractured light of day now portray a world of darkness only partially and imperfectly revealed by light.

And fires.

I love fires. And it is in the dark, huddled around the uncertain and flickering light of a fire, that stories were first told.

David Carmack Lewis
October, 2007