The Goldfinch (Fabritius)

David’s history as an artist started, appropriately enough, with a short stint in HM Prison for forgery in the mid-1990s. It was while serving the sentence that David was inspired to start painting after being seduced by the stories of the artists he’d study. Fascinated by their technical genius he became more and more interested in attaining a level of expertise, and being ‘connected’ to the very psyche of the artists, even dreaming of their lives and the masterpiece artworks. Before long he taught himself, through rigorous preparation and a wholly immersive research process, the art of copying, and flawless reproduction. Wherever possible, even sourcing the same materials, pigments, brushes, canvases and boards staying true to the period.

David explains that his paintings are a very different discipline to that of producing original artwork, copying is notoriously difficult and much more technically challenging to follow someone else’s lines and brush styles. But he relishes the technical challenge of mastering an artist’s eye, and once he has an affinity with the artist, he is able to replicate their style to an amazing degree of closeness.

David’s preparation for a painting begins long before his brush even touches canvas, and consequently, each piece comes with its own unique narrative as a ‘David Henty’ painting, original in of itself.