“David Craven,” University of Lethbridge, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 1982, page 3
Kenneth Baker, “Canadian Art May be in the Eye of the Beholder,” The New York Times, 1983
Robyn Jeffrey, “David Craven: Selected Works, 1981 to 2013 at the MacLaren Art Centre, Ottawa”, “National Gallery of Canada Magazine”, 2014
David Craven moved to New York from Toronto in 1980 and continued experimenting with different materials such as wood and discarded vinyl records, as seen in “Untitled, 1981”. While Craven denies a specific “Americanness” to his work, he acknowledges a change in his art after he moved there. In 1983, Craven said, “…since I’ve lived in New York, my work [has] acquired a kind of psychological content that comes from the aggressive, jangling quality of life here.” In a more recent interview with the National Gallery of Canada, Craven spoke more broadly on his oeuvre when he said: “There is a purveying feeling of pressure that continues from those [1980s] works right into the current work…there is always this unspoken tension.” In “Untitled, 1981”, the shiny pieces of broken vinyl cut through the asymmetrical wall sculpture, disrupting the deliberate short strokes of pink-beige paint layered over the wood. There is a visual tension in this work that corresponds with a year of adjusting to a competitive New York climate.
