www.davidcaines.co.uk
 
I make figurative paintings. They portray real people, but they're not showing the real world. The process involves finding and sifting through hundreds of early photographs, silent film stills, and medical books. I look for characters that speak to me and evoke a precise atmosphere. Once chosen, I bring these characters together in the paintings in carefully arranged groupings. These are anxious encounters and ambiguous rituals. The aim is to invoke feelings of foreboding and melancholy in the viewer. The images sit outside of a recognisable time-frame and often represent unlikely groups of curious and seemingly disparate characters (a shaman, a figure wrapped in polythene, masked children, contortionists). Their intentions are unclear. Are they welcoming committee or assassins? Entertainers or sorcerers? The viewer must conjure the narrative. Some pictures suggest a fundamentally ridiculous relationship between humans and simple machinery (such as a woman who has coalesced with her sewing machine and a headless man being led around by a wheelbarrow). Someone has described my work as poignant and I think that's true - without wanting to get too deep - it's incredibly important to me to try and make some observation on our human condition.Since 2008 I have started to exhibit regularly in London, and I sell work to private collectors. Recently I've begun to curate group shows under the SALON16 banner, and in 2009 turned my house in North London into a gallery and opened it to the public. In September 2010 I curated the exhibition 'Ordinary Monsters' in Brick Lane, London.

DocMiami 2011 Photo Credit: www.PhotosByTree.com Georgia Van Cuylenburg, Fito Espinola and Jenny Scordamaglia

 2012 is already proving to be very exciting! Look forward to special screenings of select 2011 documentary films during our 2012 Call For Entries period. We are looking forward to welcoming back the national and international world of documentary film making December 7-9, 2012 with all NEW exciting films to see! We will once again host music concerts to benefit Brick by Brick for Tanzania, Inc., which builds schools for the needy children of Tanzania and we will also raise funds for the American Cancer Society - Doral Relay for Life. Enjoy film, music and make a difference for worthy causes with DocMiami 2012.