About the Artist
About David Youngman
David Youngman is a contemporary realist artist from Hillsdale, Michigan. After being a professional musician for about 15 years Youngman gradually made a career shift to becoming a full time artist in 2017. David has been in the visual art world for only about seven years and has already gained notable recognition by being featured in Artist Magazines' Best of Drawing 2022 and again in 2023 along with many other regional awards.
Becoming an artist was not intentional but with a strong sense to create and needing something new and different from music he found himself up at night drawing for hours. As a young kid he showed great promise as an artist but left that for music in his teen years and went on to studying music at Spring Arbor University. He then continued as a solo guitarist performing, recording, and teaching. David won many top awards with guitar including winning the 2015 International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship.
Around 2017 the spark for music was fading and that's when Youngman began drawing for the first time in about 20 years. With a wife and kids this made it difficult to seek any formal art training so David mostly taught himself to draw and paint from books and online courses. Knowing he needed some real critique he sought feedback from any respectable artist around.
Many skills and understandings from music transferred over to art well. Knowing what it took to achieve mastery on the guitar, David knew what it would take to do the same with art. As his skills grew in art he began receiving commission work and eventually opened his own gallery and studio in Hillsdale, Michigan where he still works and sells his art.
His work mostly includes traditional portraits, figures, and landscapes but is moving in a direction of church art and imaginative realism. Youngman drifts between a realist and impressionistic style exploring boundaries and interactions of these extremes. He works mostly in oil and various drawing mediums including graphite, ink, and charcoal.
Art has helped me to appreciate the world around me so much more and I understand just how important the arts are to our communities. Art seeks to express truth and beauty and promotes the soul of humanity when data and logic often try to snuff the soul out. I not only work to create the best art I can but I also seek to educate my community on how vital art is for a thriving community.
Artist Statement
My pursuit in art is truth and beauty.
This may sound like a familiar refrain, but it's exactly what I'm after.
Many pursue truth and beauty while avoiding God, the source of both. On the other hand, some play it safe, holding back truth to avoid offense. In a world driven by logic and data, the soul is easy to ignore.
I didn't understand how beautiful things were until I started painting. To paint something is to study it. Every line, color, texture, and form bears the emotional and spiritual weight of the subject itself.
I want my work to pull the soul to the forefront. All my pieces begin in the same place—paying attention to and honoring what deserves to be seen.
There's no final resolve in this pursuit. No clean conclusion. But I know the direction I'm going—deeper into truth, deeper into beauty, and toward the voice of God.