BIOGRAPHY

David Tycho was born in Vancouver B.C. in 1959. He attended UBC from 1977 to 1983, where he studied painting under Gordon Smith. After working through a number of Modernist styles, he arrived at his personal interpretation of figurative expressionism, which remained his focus until moving to Asia in 1984.

In Kyoto, David was exposed to Shodo, a Japanese style of calligraphic painting. He was particularly intrigued by the paintings of Zen monks, whose fluid, gestural brushwork often renders the characters illegible, and ultimately abstract. At the same time, he was also inspired by the paintings of Robert Motherwell, and David soon began to explore abstraction for himself.

In 1990, David began working through a number of abstract styles: from gestural, painterly expressionism, to hard-edged minimalism.

Since 1995, David has made numerous sojourns into wilderness areas, from the austere deserts of Nevada to the coastal rainforests of British Columbia. Forms and colours of the natural environment have found their way onto his palette, and, in combination with intuitive aesthetic impulses, the resulting works are a synthesis of landscape painting and total abstraction.

In addition to painting, David is an often-published writer of articles on art and wilderness travel, and winner of the 2001 Canadian Literary Award for a personal essay on The Great Basin Desert. He has also written seven feature length screenplays, two novels, and numerous short stories.

David now divides his time between painting, writing, teaching, cycling and hiking. He currently lives in Vancouver with his wife Chiyoko and son Sean.

LISTEN to David Tycho on CBC Radio's North By Northwest