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 DAVID MADSEN
by Alesha Brunell
Take an extraordinarily imaginative person, then give him the gifts to perfectly manifest that imagery for all to see, and you get David Madsen. When he isn't running his quality custom/conservation framing business, Art Frame, he's creating more pieces to add to his already enormous stockpile of original artwork.
Inside Eyes is the title of David's current masterpiece which took five years to complete, It is an 8 X 20 foot mural made of ten 4 X 4 panels and has it's own soundtrack that David (also a musician) created for it. It is inspired by the red after-images seen after the eyes close, and the stuff that dreams are made of. Impossible to fully capture in a photo of the painting but I attest to looking into Inside Eyes. It is like nodding off and the next thing you know, your watch tells you the time just flew away.
GASPetc: How long have you been painting?
David Madsen: Twenty years
GASPetc: When did you first realize you excelled past your peers?
DM: I don't know, sixth or seventh grade. More so in high school. People pointed it out to me. I wasn't the most artistic but I was certainly more creative and imaginative than most. Alot of people can draw but not everyone can take it out of their head and put it to paper.
GASPetc: Did you have any encouragement? 
DM: My parents. Everyone else didn't. I had a teacher who used to smash all my pencils. It wasn't until my senior year in high school when I actually had a teacher that encouraged me as a creative person/artist.
GASPetc: After high school, did you pursue further education in the arts?
DM: When I was 33 after I had already taught myself how to paint. Then I went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In one class my teacher asked me "What do you expect to learn from me? You already know how to paint."
School helped me organize my chaos. It taught me how to create a body of work rather than being so scattered in my styles. It also taught me how to explain, intelligently, my process of making art. I don't like talking about what I don't understand myself.
GASPetc: Can you describe how you start a project?
DM: The landscapes start with a photograph, then an outline, then the colors. I have a very innate sense of color according to my teachers. My palette and juxtaposition make my landscapes pleasing to look at.
My other stuff is done almost entirely without conscious thought. I ask the canvas what it wants to be and go from there. Most of these end up being the darker paintings. I feel like I'm 2000 years old and I've been an artist in every life. I wasn't taught how to mix paint or apply it. It was all like a gift from the Universe
GASPetc: You create your art mainly in seven different perspectives (on canvas, Plexiglas and wood), correct? Will you explain them?
DM: Yes. Cartoons, abstracts (anything not easily identifiable), organic abstracts (earthier), realism (landscapes), found object assemblages, photography, and portraits.
 GASPetc: When did you start tinkering with your found object assemblages?
DM: About ten years ago. Most of them are from this past year. I did, like two, and then nothing until recently. That was by chance. Once I opened up that door in my basement and found all this stuff, it was telling me what to do with it. They built themselves. I was just a vehicle to make them happen. I had dreams about it.
GASPetc: Your portraits are amazing, would you consider making money that way?
DM: I've done them. But don't want to focus on it because I don't enjoy it much. I'd rather do portraits of people's pets.
GASPetc: How goes the custom framing business?
DM: It's a lively day. I get alot of networking from it. It's steady work and I can frame all my own artwork which is why I started framing at 17 years old. Now I'm like a master framer.
GASPetc: Do you ever get any unusual jobs?
DM: I was asked to frame a turkey's caruncle (that pink thing on it's neck) once. Shotgun shells. A feather. One guy wanted me to frame the noose his brother killed himself with.
GASPetc: Now, you had your Ivy Corset Gallery for a year. Did the benefits outweigh all the work that went into it?
DM: It was good for the soul. It was my first solo show. I was told that I "could not have a retrospective art show because I wasn't a famous artist." My show had 130 pieces, the assemblages, abstracts, the mural with the soundtrack. And I basically did it to say "Fuck you. Yes, I can." 230 people showed up. That's pretty amazing in Worcester, MA. I did it for a year and it proved to be too much work for one person. More-so than that, it was a financial burden to keep it open. But I accomplished my goal of having a solo art show and I'll do it again if I want.
GASPetc: Was anyone interested in buying Inside Eyes?
DM: There's a few people that want it. I don't think anyone is ready to pay the 50 grand I'm asking for.
GASPetc: Do you get alot of questions about what you were thinking of and what you are trying to portray?
DM: I feel that the experience is for the viewer. It's not important why or what I was thinking when I made it. It's more important what the viewer experiences from the work. To try to figure out what I was thinking is a waste of time. It's more important what the viewer gets from it. Once I finish painting it, it's done.
I don't understand why I do it. I just make things. That's why my paintings don't come with dialogue. Sometimes I'll do an occasional political statement with a piece. Those are the ones that are started with conscious thought. But sometimes they end up dark.
GASPetc: You have both light and dark pieces. Is that to reach a larger audience?
DM: Some of it's commercialism. some is to balance myself. When I'm down, I do landscapes, plants, "happy stuff." When I'm feeling pretty good, that's when I do some of the dark stuff.
I started doing landscapes for the market. I used to do all dark stuff; Armageddon, hell, etc. Then I started to think 'I should be pleasing people so I can sell some of it.' That and to also get people to stop and look at the flowers in their own yard.
GASPetc: Did it work?
DM: No. I still have trouble selling my work. I'm usually 15 years ahead of my time. I'll create something and it won't be in style until years later but by then I'm onto something else. I've since learned to not try so hard to please other people, but I still do the pleasant pieces as a sort of spiritual medicine.
GASPetc: What are you doing presently to further your career?
DM: I have some pieces displayed on Front Street by Worcester Windows which puts artwork in vacant store windows. The Worcester Artist Group is celebrating their 20th anniversary and are displaying about 40 pieces at Jumping Joe's nightclub on Grafton Street (also in Worcester). I'm looking toward getting a domain soon, taking photos of my work. And this of course, GASPetc.
GASPetc: Have you been in any other publications?
DM: Yes. I was featured in a couple local art magazines. One was Artscope (New England's Culture Magazine) in May/June of 2007. I was also in the Worcester Magazine that came out on May 3, 2007.
GASPetc: Where would you like to see your art take you?
DM: Hopefully to a place that will allow me to make a living doing what I was meant to do.
Davids Inside Eyes mural. Click for a super high-res version (2MB)
Contact info:
By Appointment Only
Art Frame
Conservation Framing
David Madsen
29 Whitmarsh Ave.
Worcester, MA 01606
Call (508) 756-1464
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