A gay man raised in the panhandle plains of Texas, David Willburn’s experience of vast open landscapes, shaped by wind and violent storms, informs his painterly abstractions. In each composition, individualized shapes encounter one another in flattened visual fields, appearing like meteorological diagrams or agricultural maps where the land is viewed from a bird's-eye perspective. The artist’s colors and methods, including blushing pinks and collaged sections of woven fabrics, signal both his queerness and an interest in blending craft media with art-making traditions. His mixed-media paintings invite viewers to imagine a place where personal agency triumphs over the corrosive effects of discrimination.

Born in Fort Stockton, Texas (1970), and growing up in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, David Willburn is influenced by the physical and social landscapes of his youth. Since earning his MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, his work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues including Dallas Contemporary (Dallas, Texas), San Diego Art Institute (San Diego, CA), University of Art and Design (Helsinki, Finland) Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Carneal Simmons Contemporary Art (Dallas, TX) and FLXST Contemporary (Chicago, IL). His primary studio is in Fort Worth, Texas, where he lives with his husband and their dogs. This is his third exhibition with Platform.

Pictured above: Bright Dirt Dark Sky, 2021, acrylic and woven fabric on wood panel, 17 x 13.5 x 1 inches, $2,000