David Gilbert

David Gilbert (b. 1982, New York, NY) lives and works in Los Angeles.

David Gilbert’s photography can be situated in the unique crossroads of sculpture, drawing, painting, assemblage, installation, and image reproduction. Using these various media, Gilbert stages and photographs mise-en-scènes in the studio which variously and indeterminately read as traces of action, aftermath, something in progress, or finally, some kind of incident, accidentally perceived. Characterized by a sense of open-ended mystery and adumbration, the work willfully embraces ambiguity as a generative, queer position. Its quasi-Victorian quality of metaphor and suggestion feels incredibly fresh and fertile in the literal and taxonomical explicitness of our moment. Gilbert’s images are known to gracefully teem with draped curtains, window-sourced lighting, and a soft, accidental voyeurism. Shadows function as compositional and narrative devices, which help create the contemplative and melancholic mood of the photos while also inevitably reflecting on the indexical and intrinsically haunted nature of photography. In the case of Gilbert, a photography haunted by the absence of bodies, muted longing, and loss.

Current group exhibition includes Made in My Bedroom, NOON Projects, Los Angeles. 

Recent solo exhibitions include Flutter, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 2024; Fairy Tale, Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco, 2024; Heaven and Earth, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, 2023; My Heavens, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022; and The Great Outdoors, Gallery 12.26, Dallas, 2020.

Recent group exhibitions include Return of Histoire Naturelle, Chez Max et Dorothea, Los Angeles, 2024; Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, 2024; Purple Prose: Queer II Literalism & A Flowering Cacophony, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, 2023; 10 artists / 10 years, Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island, 2022; 87 Franklin Inaugural, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, 2022; and INSIDE.OUT UPSIDE.DOWN COSMIC.SPACE, Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco, 2020.

CV

Window Frame, 2023. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.5 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Solar System, 2023. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Heavenly Body, 2023. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Foot, 2023. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Installation image, My Heavens, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022

Wildflowers, 2023. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Curtains, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 50 x 33 in (127 x 83.82 cm)

Moonbeam, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8 1/2 in (33 x 21.6 cm)

Hereafter, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.5 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Fitting, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 24 x 17 in (61 x 43.2 cm)

Cake, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.5 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Slip, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 50 x 33 in (127 x 83.82 cm)

Installation image, My Heavens, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022

Fringe, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 70 x 47 in (177.80 x 119.38 cm)

Perch, 2020. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Installation image, My Heavens, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022

Anything Goes, 2018. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Blonde Streak, 2017. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Dark Tree, 2017. Archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 in (33.02 x 21.59 cm)

Installation image, My Heavens, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

Made in My Bedroom

NOON Projects, Los Angeles

Group Show

October 26 - December 7, 2024

Ongoing

Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection

Marciano art Foundation, Los Angeles

Group Show

Ongoing

Flutter

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Solo Show

April 18 - August 18, 2024

Artissma 2023

Chris Sharp Gallery, Turin

Solo Booth

November 3 - 5, 2023

My Heavens

Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles

Solo Show

September 10 - October 08, 2022