My artist’s palette is an amalgam of disconnected, random materials put together via spray paint, card, bits of scrap metal/plastic, fragments of remembered films, television, and images in books.

 

Recently, I have become fascinated by deserts. I have conjured a fictitious mixture of ‘mirages’ and what I imagine are the many earthly delights of an ‘oasis’. All the images are completely fictitious and constructed from the found materials and images I have gathered. I have never been to a desert nor experienced either the delights or the distress of an actual desert environment.

The closest I have been to an oasis or a desert is the local swimming pool, sauna in a hotel, or a beach. I guess a mirage appears whilst constructing these images.

 

The wonderful characteristics of montage/collage mean that there are no actual rules. All that is needed is a creative desire to make something that reminds me of something, via the chance materials, images from books, with an idea of a ‘theme’!

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​​David D Ferry RE was born in Blackpool. He left school at 15 as he wanted to become a professional racing cyclist, and had

various jobs connected to the tourist industry. He later studied at the Blackpool College of Technology before attending the Camberwell School of Art and Crafts and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, studying printmaking and painting. He is an internationally exhibiting artist in the field of book arts, printmaking and collage, with many solo and mixed exhibitions. His awards include a Pollock/Krasner and medals at the Seoul International Book Arts Competition in Korea. As an arts academic, he became Head of Fine Art at the Winchester School of Art, Emeritus Professor of Printmaking at Cardiff and Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Long Island University, USA. He was the Honorary Artist in Residence at the Federation University, Ballarat, Australia, in 2016.

 

His prints and book arts are in the following museum collections: Art Gallery of Ballarat, Australia, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Art Institute of Chicago, Library of Congress, Washington DC, China Printmaking Museum, Guanlan; Jinling Art Museum, China. National Gallery of South Africa, National Art Museum of Estonia, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The National Museum of Wales, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, National Art Library, London, and The Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as many corporate and university collections, including Oxford, Southampton, British Airways, Conran and John Lewis Partnership. He is the current President of the Royal Society of Printmakers, a trustee of the Sidney Nolan Trust, an advocate for the Queen Sonia Printmaking Award, and was Chairman of the Chelsea Arts Club, London, 2016-18.