The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
David Cintron
ArtistBio
David Louis Cintron has been working as a multi-disciplinary artist, musician since 1990. He draws, paints and plays music daily at his art studio in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was born and raised. He received a BFA in graphic design, with a minor concentration in Studio Art, from Kent State University.
Art runs deep in David’s family history. His great uncle was Miguel Pou, one of Puerto Rico’s great master painters, and his father, José Cintron, is regarded as one of Cleveland’s finest portrait artists and educators.
David’s work has been featured in both solo and group shows regionally. 2023 saw a solo show featured in the Huntington Building Gallery of downtown Cleveland, a curated duo show at the Cuyahoga Community College West Campus Gallery, group exhibitions at Heights Arts Gallery and Worthington Yards, a juried entry in The Paul and Nora Tikkanen Painting Prize exhibition at Ashtabula Arts Center, and several works included in the Tangents exhibition of contemporary and prolific abstract artists in the Cleveland area at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. A recent painting was also featured in the 2022 CAN Triennial in Cleveland.
David was a part of the concert poster art renaissance in the 90’s, creating flyers and posters for area music promoters as well as artist t-shirts and album covers. He currently creates all of the artwork for the Indonesian boutique imprint Seratus Ribu’s curated mix series.
His most recent published work, an art book called World Views, was packaged with a new full length solo music release of the same name, by Textile Records in France.
Among his musical accomplishments, David has been a guitarist in Pere Ubu, has played with Rhys Chatham in his Guitar Trio All-Stars, has had his music appraised by Julian Cope and licensed to Chrysler. He is a solo musical artist, the leader of the band,Terminal Lovers, and has played, led, and collaborated with many other groups over the past 35 years.
Inspired by the outside natural world as well as the inner spiritual world, David’s current body of visual work consists of color rich and expressive abstract paintings and evocative ink drawings. He works intuitively and spontaneously. These automatic compositions, depicting images emergent from the unconscious mind, are an exploration and discovery of form and formlessness, negative space and imagined structures. The creative process, informed by an ongoing dialogue between artist, materials and the developing work, guides the finished composition to attain it’s place and reveal itself.
Artist Statement
My current artistic practice functions as a grounding meditation. My intent is simply to create automatically, in the present moment, to express who I am.
The work begins without a preconceived idea or plan; I show up and start. Compositions—depicting images emergent from the unconscious mind—are an exploration and discovery of form and formlessness, negative space and imagined structures, suspended worlds and symbolic gateways. There is an intuitive dialogue with the materials and the painting—a constant back and forth process between automatism, creating without conscious thought, and a stepping back to make more considered decisions with color, composition, pattern, shape, space, and dimension. Heavily inspired by all nature and life around us, I will occasionally notice recognizable forms in the developing work, and may play with them just enough to encourage formation while allowing identification to remain elusive.
There’s also a very important temporal aspect to my process. Though I proceed with work daily, I find it important to recognize when to leave; when I no longer have answers. The intervals between the studio sessions will always provide solutions, until they don’t. Once there are no more questions asked, no more lines or forms, tangential relations shouting for resolution, I know the painting has found its proper place; transcending the picture plane and living in its own space.