About

Long fascinated by the dichotomies of western and eastern philosophical thought, by the contradictions of western absoluteness of perceptual reality and eastern philosophy of the illusion and impermanence of the perceptual world, David Aldrich seeks to combine the best of both worlds. With decades as both a medical illustrator and educator, his art lies at the intersection of fine art and science. 

More real than real, his paintings jump off the two-dimensional plane and become a form of realism, more real than a photograph and yet capturing the essence of each subject in a way that transcends perceptual reality.

Hyper-realism lies in the moment of the retinal image, the moment of action, and the moment of engagement. The past is coloured and re-interpreted by the inescapable present.  By exploring the exactness of this immutable present through portraiture, he finds the universal synchronicity embedded in the moment, capturing, if you like, the soul of his subject in oil. 

Aldrich´s portraiture evokes an immediacy, bringing viewer into direct contact with subject in a way not seen since the days of Bougereau. 

The task, he says, is finding the universal through selectively perfecting the detail of the immediacy; capturing the retinal image, the moment of action is only the beginning. The task at hand, is to preserve it in all its glorious abstractions.

The perception of life is a dream we´re trapped in. Ultimate reality lies somewhere beyond.