David Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944. He studied at the Skowhegan School of Art in Maine, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
According to the art critic, Stephen Westfall, “The seductive physical surface of Shapiro’s picture plane is most evident in his single panel, Mudra paintings…they resonate in scale with the human torso, drawing the viewer into a physical relationship with their objecthood…These paintings make explicit what is implicit throughout Shapiro’s work, a meditative light and space that is borne within the density and darkness of the body. Only painting proposes a concrete physical condition and a limitless imaginal field at the same time. Shapiro fashions this proposal into poetry.”
Stephen Westfall. “Poetry of Interiors,” David Shapiro: Paintings and Works on Paper, May 16 – July 16, 1994. Kaoru Gallery, Tokyo.
