University at Buffalo (UB)
Faculty Exhibition
Welcome to the Promised Land comprises paintings and drawings informed by David Schirm’s travels to Sri Lanka and India on two separate Fulbright Fellowships. Schirm’s paintings and drawings reference Judeo-Christian themes and ideas associated with miniatures from West and South Asia to protest social, cultural, and environmental abuses. Allusions to environmental degradation, military doublespeak, and cultural clashes are coded in highly saturated colors that create tension between political impact and beauty to create a contemporary forum for traditional landscape paintings.
David Schirm is Chair of the Department of Visual Studies at UB and received his MFA in painting from Indians University in Bloomington, IN after serving in the Vietnam War from 1976-1969. He has received a variety of awards and grants, including the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Drawing grant and two Fulbright Fellowships in 1995 and 2004. Schirms’ work has been exhibited widely.