About the work

Fires 12.12 23, is from a group of drawings which have evolved from larger paintings of flames set against an intensely coloured ground, as if the landscape or ocean is burning and consumed by fire. Illustrated Medieval manuscripts containing fiery Apocalypse such as the Livre de la Vigne Nostre Seigneur 1450 in the Bodleian Library and contrasting images of flames, denoting energy, transformation and the divine in works by Fra Angelico, are of influence to me, but it seems 2023 was a broken year of strife and fire, still ongoing.

Date and country of birth

1960, GB

Career Highlights

Solo exhibitions:

The Boys: an Adventure, an exhibition of drawings by David Austen and words by Hisham Matar, Ingleby gallery (2023) with the launch of a new publication of Austen and Matar’s collaboration;

The Last Trapeze Artist, an exhibition and publication, David Totah, New York, USA, (2021);

UNDERWORLD, a major survey exhibition, Dundee Contemporary Arts  (2019);

The Drowned, an exhibition of watercolours and sculpture, Matt’s Gallery, London, UK (2018);

The stars above the ocean the ocean beneath the stars, TOTAH New York (2018)