David Dodge
Artist Statement As a student of the traditional approach to landscape painting, I believe nature to be the greatest teacher. Only by being there can one learn to see the subtleties which are the defining aspects captured by those who have created the richest landscape art throughout history. When outside, an exhilarating energy comes with the changing light and weather, and the challenge to capture what I feel to be the essence of a place at a particular moment in time.Biography Dave Dodge paints landscapes, primarily en plein air, and is a continual student of nature and traditional landscape art. His love of the outdoors and the landscape began in the Connecticut River valley of western New Hampshire where the farmland looks to Mount Ascutney. Art began to be a focus for him at Kimball Union Academy which provided a foundation for Syracuse University where he majored in illustration and studied advertising design. Graduating with a BFA, he moved to Westport Connecticut and began work as a designer and illustrator in the metropolitan New York area. He returned to New Hampshire in the mid-eighties and continued to work as a designer. When the design world entered the digital age, he embraced the new technology, but found he missed the hands-on aspects. A painter friend, John Sirois, introduced him to outdoor painting and he became instantly hooked.
He and his wife Kathryn reside on East Mountain in Peterborough and enjoy traveling to new places along with regular painting/hiking trips to their favorite spots in the White Mountains, Maine coast, Nantucket, California, Arizona, and Scotland.