David Roman
David Roman is a Birmingham-based contemporary artist whose work bridges ancient craft and contemporary dilemmas. His practice combines Byzantine gilding traditions with ornamental and figurative elements to reflect on concerns around human worth in a society driven by attention economies and data extraction.
Through original works made with precious materials, hand-crafted surfaces, and symbolic forms, the paintings serve as reminders of the transcendent quality of the human spirit, which can't be reduced to metrics.
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 success, 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.