David Huffman (artist)

Updated on Nov 25, 2023

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Nationality American Movement Afrofuturism		Website david-huffman.com

Known for contemporary art, painting Style abstraction, figuration Alma mater California College of the Arts

David Huffman (1963) born in Berkeley, California, USA is an American painter and installation artist. He is known for works that combine science fiction aesthetics with a critical focus on the political exploration of identity. He resides in Oakland and is faculty in the Graduate Fine Arts Program at California College of the Arts

David Huffman (artist) Shooting Hoops With an Astronaut David Huffman KQED Art School

Early life and education

David Huffman (artist) WM whitehot magazine of contemporary art August 2009 Interview

David Huffman was raised in Berkeley, California. His mother was an activist who supported various local causes in the 60s, including the Black Panthers.

Huffman studied in New York and San Francisco receiving his MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts. He has taught at Santa Clara University and is currently a professor at California College of the Arts.

Work

Huffman's work melds the aesthetics of science fiction, formal explorations in the medium of paint and identity politics.

Huffman's early work includes African-American space travelers he calls "traumanauts". These figures enter futuristic landscapes where paint combines with images of cosmic debris and ecological decay to create surreal tableaux.

David Huffman (artist) davidhuffmancomDavidHuffmanjpg

Later works continue to explore the politics of race in works that limit his iconography to the image of the basketball in combination with an abstracted deep space created of layered tones of browns and blacks

The basketball is also central to Huffman's installation work. His Basketball Pyramid works feature sculptures created of hundreds of basketballs built into life sized pyramids.

Awards and fellowships

Among the honors which Huffman has earned are:

Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation (2008)

Artadia Award (2006)

Palo Alto Public Arts Commission Award(2005)

Selected exhibitions

David Huffman’s work has been featured in exhibitions at numerous galleries and institutions including:

Art Projects International, New York, New York, USA, PLACE (2016)

San Francisco State University Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA Hydrarchy and Globalization (2015)

Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA Everything Went Dark Until I Saw Angels (2014)

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York, USA The Shadows Took Shape (2013)

Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, California, USA Trapped in the Wunderkammer (2013)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA Dissident Futures (2013)

Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA Floating World (2012)

San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, San Francisco, California, USA Passports (2012)

Tecoah Bruce Gallery @ the Oliver Art Center, Oakland, California, USA We're All Here Because We're Not All There (2012)

Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA The Calender's Tales: Fantasy, Figuration & Representation (2012)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA Bay Area Now 6 (2011)

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA Out of Bounds (2011)

de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, California, USA A Sense of Place: Location/Inspiration (2010)

Rupert Goldsworthy Gallery, Berlin, Germany Five Centimeters Short (2010)

Fred [London] LTD, London, UK COLLAGE, LONDON/NEW YORK (2009)

Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco, California, USA I Do It For My People (2009)

Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA Dig it! (2008)

York Castle Museum, York, UK Passed as Present (2007)

Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California, USA Artists of Invention (2007)

Institute of International Visual Art, London, UK, Berlin, Germany, Alien Nation (2006-2007)

Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, USA "Black Belt (2004)

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York, USA Freestyle (2001)

Collections

Huffman's work is held in many permanent collections including:

References

David Huffman (artist) Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA