David Janssen Jr.
David Janssen Jr. is an assemblage and text artist who has exhibited across the United States, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Recent exhibitions include a solo feature at Washington State University in Pullman and participation at Reflections Gallery at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University, Terrain Gallery in Spokane, Washington, Third Street Gallery in Moscow, Idaho, Moscow Contemporary, and University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. David has won multiple awards at various higher education institutions including Washington State University, University of Idaho, Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
The artworks often contain creative writing depicted in paint which express impulsive, passionate declarations of both love and hate as well ironic dichotomies such as ‘blood in a drugstream’ followed by social media like-counters. David’s assemblages, by contrast, often depict magazine clippings of female models integrated with smears of paint or assembled with various salvaged printed imagery. His entire body of work reveals a sense of sensual tension and discomfort with society, often alluding to the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic.
With smears of paint and carefully cropped imagery, David expresses various modes of emotions such as despair, desolation, disillusionment, nihilism, passion, and lust. His textual work dictates the very fiber of the feelings he wishes to convey, not only literally, but how they are assembled onto the canvas. Ranging from being typed, scribbled, stenciled, or pasted, the text becomes presented based on the exact sentiments being conveyed. For example, in one piece, David may have the text repeated with the same phrase or word several times while having each subsequent reading be gradually displayed with increasingly aggressive smears or faded out with sprays of paint. Other methods entails having the text stenciled or written over various abstracted painted forms, hiding some words in a sentence while simultaneously strategically revealing others.
Sleepy Head (pictured above) remains part of a small series, unusual compared to the rest of the body of work. The piece depicts just a portion of a woman's face and neck inside an open letter and attached to the wall and erases the boundaries between installation, collage assemblage, and direct conceptual art. As if the viewer just opened up a letter, to find a mysterious message by a secret admirer who leaves only a cropped image of herself as the sole method of communication.
David Janssen Jr. conveys concepts both literally and metaphorically through his integrative methods of assemblage and the written word. He wishes to communicate to the audience raw, unfiltered emotions which express the deep anxiety left in place by the isolation of postmodern society. Deeply psychological and provoking the viewer to critically think, David’s works exemplify how contemporary art can be used to alter perceptions of personal and collective identity.
