BIOGRAPHY

David Tolley is a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He usually signs himself ‘DAT’, his initials (David Austin Tolley).

Following art school in Oxford, training at the Royal College of Art and national service spent in Egypt, Tolley became creative director of an advertising agency he co-founded. Its success enabled him to pursue his vocation fulltime as an independent artist. Examples of his artwork are in private collections throughout North America and Europe. Exhibitions exclusively of his work have shown in London and Montreal, where he lived for several years.

Tolley’s work characteristically highlights the creative potential in themes often considered unsettling or difficult. He aims to stimulate the perceptions of his audiences, simultaneously capturing their imagination through provocation, curiosity, delight and insight, always conveyed with integrity, feeling, and humanity.

Over decades he has created and sustained a compelling personal vision, combining representational and abstract modes, developed with technical fluency, and compelling compositional assurance. His approach draws on spiritual traditions, without implying any overt religious association.

Prolific both in painting and printmaking, Tolley currently works in a studio he designed and built for himself in Oxfordshire. Though reclusive and reluctant to comment on his output, he is happy for a selection of his work to be shown in a nearby gallery, where arrangements may be made for it to be viewed. He rarely gives interviews.