david surman

the artist david surman
david surman

David Surman is a London based artist, who was born in Devon but moved to the remote Scottish Highlands at a young age. His early artistic training began aged 15, under the tutelage of Rob Fairley, before going on to study Animation at Newport School of Art in the early 2000s, and later an MA in Film Studies at Warwick University. Working in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and film, his most recent work focusses on the projection of human experience onto the natural world. His paintings are playful, colourful and inventive works, which ‘employ elements of pathetic fallacy and cartoon form in a calculated way to imbue animal bodies with both sincerity and irony, liveliness and psychology.’


The oldest known paintings represent our perception of animal movement. My art proceeds from this ancient tradition of representing kinetic bodies. Paint’s capacity to record gestural movement, in a way that can be universally understood, has driven my work. Through study of my own spontaneous and intuitive expressions, I free myself from preconceived notions of painting. I directly relate the vitality of the form to the subject, and thus define painting as the meeting of two vitalities: painter and viewer.

the artist david surman
david surman

David Surman is a London based artist, who was born in Devon but moved to the remote Scottish Highlands at a young age. His early artistic training began aged 15, under the tutelage of Rob Fairley, before going on to study Animation at Newport School of Art in the early 2000s, and later an MA in Film Studies at Warwick University. Working in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and film, his most recent work focusses on the projection of human experience onto the natural world. His paintings are playful, colourful and inventive works, which ‘employ elements of pathetic fallacy and cartoon form in a calculated way to imbue animal bodies with both sincerity and irony, liveliness and psychology.’


The oldest known paintings represent our perception of animal movement. My art proceeds from this ancient tradition of representing kinetic bodies. Paint’s capacity to record gestural movement, in a way that can be universally understood, has driven my work. Through study of my own spontaneous and intuitive expressions, I free myself from preconceived notions of painting. I directly relate the vitality of the form to the subject, and thus define painting as the meeting of two vitalities: painter and viewer.