David Roman
David Roman is a contemporary artist whose work explores the relationship between matter and consciousness, drawing on ancient symbols, sacred geometry, and material traditions that have evolved over millennia.
Working with hand-engraved gesso, pure gold leaf, and ornamental systems rooted in the visual languages of Byzantine, medieval, and prehistoric cultures, he creates artworks that exist between the physical and the immaterial.
Human, not data.
Central to Roman's practice is the human figure, which appears across his work in a state of dissolution. His figures are never entirely solid.
They are constructed from ornamental patterns, partially distorted, hinting at the fractal relationship between the individual and the universal, and the idea that what we are extends far beyond what can be measured.
Gold carries a specific meaning in Roman's work. It carries the core belief that divinity is not separate from ordinary human existence. It is embedded within it.
Each body of work Roman produces draws a parallel between a historical moment and the present. His previous work examined the current expansion of human consciousness alongside the Renaissance understanding of humanity's place within a larger natural order.
His current work looks to the Art Nouveau movement, which mobilised craft, ornament, and handmade process in direct resistance to industrial mass production.
Roman sees in that movement a clear mirror for today's cult of optimisation, where speed, output, and data have become the measure of everything, at the cost of everything else.
Studio in: Birmingham, UK
Nationality: Romanian-British
Education: BA Fine Art & Illustration, Coventry University
Selected shows:
Just Move, Solo Exhibition, Birmingham, 2016
NGA Award Show, Featured Artist, San Francisco, 2017
Group exhibitions across London, Birmingham and Coventry, UK.