David Romero: Objects of Intimacy

Originally from Southern California, young artist David Romero enjoyed the good fortune to be of mixed heritage - Mexican, and American, and Gay. This blend of cultural influences had led him to feel as author James Baldwin did when asked how he felt about being homosexual and black - "I feel like I've hit the jackpot." Romero moved to San Francisco in 1996 with "naive ambitions and grandiose plans, which have since been tempered dramatically", and he graduated with honors from the Art Institute of San Francisco.

David considers his works to constitute a sort of diary. Professionally, he is a commercial artist, and with his personal drawings he is simply looking to portray and somehow make concrete his day-to-day experiences and his relationships with others. All of the pictures are of David's friends, boyfriends, or self-portraits, and he tries through his art to come to some understanding of himself as he fits into these different places and relationships. As he puts it, "I am simply trying to see."

"A drawing is for me an object of intimacy far superior to any photograph. When I look at a drawing I always remember clearly everything associated with it - the weather, the conversation we were having, the way I felt about the subject - my tenderness, happiness, or sympathy - in an almost visceral way. A photograph is curiously alienating - and I frequently wonder when pondering some old picture - where was I? What was I thinking? Was I really so happy as my excessive smile suggests? A drawing is an interpretation, a tender exchange between the artist and the sitter, which requires time, an element lacking in photography, to achieve fruition. And I think it is that element of time, of compromise between artist and sitter (because the camera is uncompromising) which makes drawing a powerful tool and weapon with which to understand."

"My work, which attempts to capture a spiritual depth of individuality through the medium of the nude male figure, is best served through its appreciation by the audience for which it is intended; the audience in which I am most comfortable and to which I belong, indeed, which is the primary focus of my work and sensibility. My drawings reflect a deeply personal preoccupation with the figure; portrayals of friends and boyfriends done in moments of personal intimacy, and which attempt to capture the feeling of comfort and connection with the models."

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Portraits Made at the Moments of Orgasm

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