David Sabastian

Alchemy Gallery is pleased to present Once Upon a Time, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist David Sabastian. Once Upon a Time is the artist’s first showing in New York.

David Sabastian is an artist preoccupied with disrupting the viewer’s perspective of the world. As a passionate creative with a presence in music and fashion, his venture into visual arts is one loaded with intention, as he seeks a new format for his anti-establishment ideals. Viewing himself and his life as an extended performance piece, Once Upon a Time sees Sabastian breaking into the visual arts in earnest, with vibrant and heavily layered paintings addressing Black History and contemporary issues. Ranging from playful riffs on pop culture to thought-provoking explorations of race and class, this new body of work is threaded with intimate reflections on his lived experience as a Jewish American Black man.

“I think the reason my art connects is because a lot of things look nice, but are void of anything else...I want to see something that offends me, or makes me stop and contemplate life. That’s what good art does”.

Once Upon a Time presents a documentation of history with the artist's own narrative weaved throughout the wider art canon. In the work Realise, Real Lies, David proposes this idea of re-written histories by completing elaborate and detailed large-scale paintings, only to paint over them in his iconic blue, leaving behind small portions of the past work to be seen. In the work Plagiarism of the same style we see the words “History is written by the winner” scrawled in white oil stick alongside Mona Lisa’s flattened form. Peeking from behind a layer of Yves Klein Blue-esque paint are the figures of black men, some more developed than others, some crossed out – friends of the artist who are no longer with us; those whose histories are seldom taught with accuracy.

Every aspect of Sabastian’s artistic process is deeply considered and intentional. In several works included in Once Upon a Time Sabastian has employed the use of large, repurposed pieces of cardboard adorned with the artist's signature blue paint, and colonial representations of black figures. The works are incomplete, or perhaps partly erased - a nod to the “winners” of the world editing the past, erasing the future. The use of cardboard is a strategic nod to Skid Row, the largest stable population of houseless people in the United States. A destination that Sabastian is personally familiar with and is invested in creating awareness and support for its residents through his fashion brand of the same name.

David Sabastian (b. 1989 Los Angeles) is a multi-hyphenate creative who’s work spans across music, fashion, video art, and painting. It is the artist’s intention to use his creativity to generate difficult conversations around the injustices marginalized people of color face in past and present day America. He has a keen desire to bring light to these injustices and wants his audiences to engage in those oftentimes uncomfortable conversations. He approaches sensitive topics with a great sense of style and humor, mocking the American political climate and history.