Robert Diamant

So some of you might have seen that in 2024.

But I'm really excited to see these new paintings, which I'm actually sat right in front of now with the wonderful painter himself.

So I would like to welcome to Talk Art, David Dawson.

So I'm actually here with you in your studio and you're actually in the middle of making a new work.

It's so great.

So where were these art schools?

I was going to say, you also have a proximity to like great historic art and a community.

Oh yeah, because you were a student with Tracy Emmett.

So in your early student years, say, what were the subject matter of your paintings?

Yeah, that must have been quite addictive in a way, like getting to see him work.

It was fascinating for me.

Especially because you love painting so much.

And when you were helping him as his assistant, did you still keep your own practice going?

It's interesting thinking about the RCA, you were talking about going a bit more abstract because your work is a kind of meeting point of figurative painting.

And sometimes architectural buildings will appear in your work or even humans.

Like you sometimes have people in recent paintings I've seen working on the farm or different things like that.

But also I was just talking to you before we started and one of the new paintings, which I think is going to be shown at Gainsborough House.

It's like there are cows and the animals in the landscape, but actually they're almost just marks and they're almost becoming abstracted.

Yeah.

So it's really interesting how you obviously spent time kind of, you know, going between those two.