Dave Martsolf

Dave Martsolf has been drawing and painting for over 40 years, since turning away from studies in architecture at MIT, circa 1967-70, to focus on the Fine Arts.  Initially, he was intrigued by surrealism, and applied skills in photorealism to create complex surreal oil canvases with a dark flair.  In the 1980’s these abilities earned him the Juror’s Prize at the “UNH Revisited” Alumni Show in 1981, and the Sawyer Award for Painting at the 38^th Annual New Hampshire Art Association Exhibition at the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, NH (1985).

Martsolf’s recent Dance series pushes the original sketch line to become the artwork itself. The lines are emboldened with a variety of line widths of black oil paint with bold background colors to intrigue the eye in a dance filled with suggested motion.

During the 2020 pandemic, Martsolf turned again back to the surreal, but this time with a more positive outlook, both in subject matter and in cerebral conception.  He also began a portrait series of people with whom Martsolf feels an affinity, such as Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Angela Merkel, the Dalai Lama, and Stacey Abrams.