Since early childhood, I’ve had a deep connection to landscapes and the natural world. In addition to observing nature on walks and hikes, mainly in New England, I’ve been sketching and drawing for as long as I can remember. Even when engaged in other activities, I often have a pen or pencil in hand while on the phone or in meetings, for instance. I’ve come to realize that this gestural, almost unconscious approach informs my paintings and charcoal drawings. 

Influenced by the early 20th century Canadian landscape painters Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, whose main inspiration was unadorned nature in places that they knew intimately, I decided to take a similar approach when I really committed myself to painting, depicting raw landscapes, mostly in New England, that I know very well. The resulting images are generally stripped of the direct imprint of humankind. In many cases, the landscapes I paint are in the process of going back to nature, as once inhabited, farmed, or industrialized places are revegetated and overgrown. 

Many earlier paintings depict rotting docks, old stone foundations, and other remnant coastal infrastructure overgrown with seaweed and grasses, weathered by the elements, against backdrops of sea, sky and trees. More recently, my subject matter has tended toward the more wild and remote: even traces of buildings, roads, and other reminders of human life are largely absent. Seascapes, in varying degrees of abstraction, both real and imagined, have become frequent subjects. 

Some of my work is based on sketches or photographs, but I often paint from my mind’s eye, a combination of the memory and understanding of places and natural, gestural spontaneity and imagination. I often focus on the sky as much as land and water, on the interplay and occasionally interchangeable characteristics of sea and sky, expressing mood, distance, changing colors, and the play of light. I seek a sense of the spirit of a place, a “vivid subtlety” that is both realistic and abstract. 

David Everett

Most paintings are water-soluble oil (on various surfaces)