One thing that has always tied David Stewart Klein’s work together has been the need to express something strong, volatile, fragile, fleeting. To him that can be the intimacy and vulnerability of a portrait, an argument of a couple, the silence between figures, the strength of a individual standing or fluidly in motion. Klein takes his subjects and amplifies the compositional space with what is being represented, a fragment of his mind and the people that inhabit the world around him. Whether it is in oil, or acrylic paint, sculpture, or drawings done in charcoal, ink or pencil, his works read as intense, thought provoking and beautiful. Klein will use the color pallets necessary to show the mood he seeks to convey, whether in varying vivid colors or in a more limited dynamic range. He aims to capture the essence of his subjects and intends to show his audience his belief that no matter their background, the one thing present in us all is our souls. We all have something to say underneath our silence.
Select Exhibitions list
Solo exhibitions:
2022:
They Look Back
Tag Gallery
Los Angeles, CA - May/June 2022
2021:
A Beautiful Chaos
Tag Gallery
Los Angeles, CA - July 2021
2020:
Welcome to the New World: As Its Always Been
Tag Gallery
Los Angeles, CA - July/Aug 2020
2019:
Reflections
Blue 7 Gallery
Santa Monica, CA - March/April 2019
Group exhibitions:
Klein has participated in over 100 group exhibitions since beginning his exhibiting career in 2011.
2022:
Tag Gallery: Pretty in Pink
Los Angeles, CA - April 2022
Fusion Art : 4th Annual Into the Wild Exhibition(Juried, Online)
Santa Fe, NM- March -June 2022
Tag Gallery: Labyrinth
Los Angeles, CA - March 2022
Tag Gallery: Weird Science
Los Angeles, CA - February 2022
Dab Art Co:
People Are Starting To Notice
(Juried) Photography Exhibition
February - April 2022
Tag Gallery: Disruption
Los Angeles, CA - January 2022
2021:
14 group exhibitions including:
Artavita: Artist of the Year 2021 Competition
Chosen as one of the Artists of the Year
December 2021
M.A.D.S. Gallery: HYSTERICA
Fuerteventura, Canarias Islas & Milan, Italy - November 2021
Tag Gallery: Proud
Los Angeles, CA - June 2021
Fusion Art : 3rd Annual Lines, Shapes & Objects Art Exhibition(Juried, Online)
Palm Springs - June 2021
Kunsthaus RoZig: Blau.
Virtual Gallery. June 2021
Gallery 825: Apocrypha.
Los Angeles, CA - May 2021
Tag Gallery: Body Politic.
Los Angeles, CA - Jan 2021
2020:
8 group exhibitions including:
Tag Gallery: Small Works.
Los Angeles, CA - Dec 2020
Gallery 825: Non sequitur
Los Angeles, CA - August/Sep 2020
Gallery 825: Exalted One (Online exhibition)
Los Angeles, CA - August 2020
Tag Gallery: Virtually Unlimited
Los Angeles, CA - July 2020
Brittany Davis Gallery: Art is Life
online exhibition - July 2020
2019:
Blue 7 Gallery: Transportation
Santa Monica, CA - April/May 2019
Blue 7 Gallery: Magic in Nature
Santa Monica, CA - June/July 2019
2018:
Blue 7 Gallery: Ordinary to Extraordinary
Santa Monica, CA - March/April 2018
Blue 7 Gallery: Mysterious World
Santa Monica, CA - May/June 2018
Blue 7 Gallery: Music in Art
Santa Monica, CA - Aug/Sep 2018
Blue 7 Gallery: It’s a Celebration
Santa Monica, CA - Dec 2018
2017:
Blue 7 Gallery: Light and Shadow
Santa Monica, CA - Dec 2017
2015:
Otis College of Art and Design Senior Exhibition
Los Angeles, Ca - - May 2015
Beecaso: Save the Bees exhibition
Pasedena, CA - Sep 2015
2014:
11 group exhibitions including:
The MUZEO Museum, Andrew Carnegie Gallery
Anaheim, CA – March 2014
Otis College of Art and Design, Senior Exhibition: Enneagram
Los Angeles, Ca - - Fall 2014
2013:
12 group exhibitions including:
Gallery Sev Ven: One year Anniversary show
Huntington Beach. CA - May 2013
KCRW's Edward Goldman mention on radio: Otis College of Art and Design: Seventy-Four(74)
May 2013
Warehouse of Contemporary Art: 10 Year Anniversary show
Anaheim, CA – Dec 2013
2012:
33 group exhibitions including:
DADA: Entartete Kunst III
Downtown Los Angeles, CA Feb 2012
2nd st. Cigar Lounge and Gallery (Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk)
Feb 2012 - Aug 2014
Gallery Sev Ven: Gallery opening gala
Huntington Beach, CA
The Think Tank Gallery, L’art Pour L’art: The Painted Dot
Los Angeles, CA - June 2012
Rochester Art House, Figure Model Appreciation Gala
Westwood, CA - June 2012
the Hive Gallery: Masters of Body Paint
Los Angeles, CA - August 2012
RawArtists: Radiance, The Key Club
Hollywood, CA - August 2012
Rochester Art House, Humans Make Art: Leo group show
Westwood, CA - August 2012
The Hive Gallery: The Rise of Cthulu
Los Angeles, CA - October 2012
Otis College of art and Design: Open-house for Sculpture
DADA: Entartete Kunst 4
Downtown Los Angeles, CA - December 2012
Warehouse of Contemporary Art
Anaheim, CA - December 2012
2011:
Barrette Art Gallery: The Food Show
Santa Monica, CA - May 2011
Other:
Artavita: Artist of the Year 2021 Competition
Chosen as one of the Artists of the Year
December 2021
Los Angeles Times(Interview):
Review: A beautiful chaos: The art of David Stewart Klein
by Regina Weber
September 2021
VoyageLA(interview): Rising star: Meet David Stewart Klein
August 2021
Member Los Angeles Art Association(LAAA) 2020-
Society of Illustrators Los Angeles
Associate
2020-
LA Art Documents feature documentary: Welcome to the New World
summer 2020
ARTslanT: Winner in the 3rd 2012 Showcase competition
May 2012
Radio Sancho (Guest speaker on Internet Radio)
Apr 2012
Mentioned on:
LA Times
Muzeo.org
Artillery Magazine
VoyageLA
OCWeekly
MADS Gallery(Italy/Spain)
LAartparty.com
WOCA.com
Society of Illustrators Los Angeles
Tag Gallery
Los Angeles Art Association
David Stewart Klein was born in raised in Queens, New York to two musicians by profession and is a 4th generation visual artist on his mothers side. Klein used most of his childhood and teenage years teaching himself the styles he loved and expressing himself through drawing. His first education was at age 8 at the Roslyn School of Fine Art in New York where he developed his interests and skills in painting, charcoal, and pastel. During this time he was influenced by Norman Rockwell and close friend, Ronald Workman, a New York based artist. Prior to his next educational experience, He became enamored by certain comic book artists such as Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Michael Turner, cartoonist Jim Davis and caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, and he soon began to create his own comics and characters. Not long after this he found his first mentor, comic book artist Christian Torres who inspired him to go forward with his dreams for several years. During high school, Klein and his family left New York and moved permanently to Los Angeles, CA. During his 3rd year in high school, Klein was selected to attend a course at the Young Artist Studio at Otis College of Art and Design, taught by influential artist Franklyn Liegel. After high school, Klein attended Santa Monica College and found his love of Fine Art and eventually decided to attend Otis to finish his BFA Degree. During his time in college he fell in love with the works of Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Zdzislaw Beksiński, Gustave Dore, comic book artists Möebius and Frank Miller, and developed a love for Japanese ink drawing. Before beginning undergrad studies at Otis, Klein became adamant about starting his exhibiting career and decided to venture into the Los Angeles scene without any contacts. From meeting people at openings he began to plant seeds and stir up noise about his unseen talent and was soon offered a spot in a largely attended show in Downtown Los Angeles by a group called DADA. This immediately caught the attention of several art curators and gallery owners and in the following months accumulated exhibitions in areas all over Los Angeles and the neighboring Orange County. By the end of the year, 2012, Klein had participated in nearly 40 group exhibitions, and by the time he earned his BFA from Otis, he had participated in over 60. In the year 2018, Klein held his first solo exhibition in Santa Monica, California at the Blue 7 Gallery featuring 60 pieces of art, mostly paintings. In July 2020, Tag Gallery hosted his second solo exhibition; Welcome to the New World: As It's Always Been, one of the very early shows in Los Angeles to directly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in person, a show which was documented in a 12 minute film by film-making duo LA Art Documents.
photo taken for OCweekly.com. Kleins artwork on display at the Muzeo in Anaheim, WOCA 10 year anniversary.
Taggallery.net
RawArtist, for 2012 exhibition at the legendary Key Club on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.
WOCA.com
Copyright © 2012-2022 David Stewart Klein - All Rights Reserved.