The Colorful World of Naive Art

“The world of naive art is a colorful world filled with fabulous details. In this world everything seems peacefully flying and takes a person back to his childhood, evoking coziest memories,” says David Berkowitz Chicago, a naïve art painter.

The term naïve allude to something natural and unaffected, innocent, something that lacks experience, judgment or wisdom.

This term doesn’t change its meaning in art. Naive art includes almost all of these characteristics.

As David Berkowitz Chicago explains, naive artists have no relevant education. They paint without any awareness of anatomy, technique or perspective. The paintings of the naïve artists are simple, vivid, childlike – innocent.

Any form of visual art created by individuals who lack or reject conventional education and guidance that professional artists receive is considered to be naïve art.

Naïve art disagrees with dominant trends in art of their time.

Berkowitz points out that these artists shouldn’t be confused with artists who paint for fun, or so-called “Sunday artists”.

It is also wrong to take naive artists for those who don’t know what they’re doing. Naïve artists paint with the same passion as educated and well-trained artists. The difference is that naïve artists lack formal knowledge of methods.

Naive Artists

“Undoubtedly, the most influential naive artist is Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” says Berkowitz in an recent interview for Thrive Global, “but there are other artists of this genre who are worth mentioning”.

The Italian painter, Antonio Ligabue, was one of the most important naive artists of the 20th century. During the 1940s, Ligabue gained recognition for his work.

Nikifor, a Russian painter, created over 40 000 paintings.

The Australian painter Sidney Nolan, created landscapes that aimed to celebrate Australian history.

Grandma Moses started her artistic career at the age of 78. She was known for her take on American realism.

Serbian painters from Kovačica created great panoramic paintings. The most famous of these painters is Zuzana Halupova.

The uneducated Serbian farmer, Ilija Bašičević Bosilj, started painting as a middle-aged man. Despite that had solo exhibitions even in New York.

Connection to other art genres

Naive art is often connected to primitivism, primitive (tribal) art. Also, it is confused with folk and outsider art.

According to an academic publication made by Berkowitz, primitive art refers to tribal art from Africa, the South Pacific and Indonesia, prehistoric and very early European art. any art that imitates or is characterized by primitive art is described by primitivism.

Folk art is utilitarian and decorative art. This type of art expresses national identity. Generally, folk artists are uneducated, as well as naive artists. This is why folk and naive art easily confused.

Any work of art that is created by socially and culturally marginal people (undereducated, mentally ill, prisoners) unconnected to the conventional art world is considered to be outsider art

“Over the years, appreciation of naive art has increased,” claims the naïve art painter, David Berkowitz Chicago. Nowadays, it is completely recognized art genre that is spread and represented in galleries all over the world.

The Visionary Narrative of David Berkowitz Chicago

Paintings of the superb author, visual artist, painter and illustrator David Berkowitz have so far been exhibited at several world locations, and know his home city of Chicago will get the chance to see his exquisite work. This mini-retrospective will encompass his entire opus of creativity, starting from his earliest beginnings, all the way to his most recent works of art. Visitors will also get the chance to see some of his never before exhibited works.

The Sculpting Skills of The Naive Art Painter David Berkowitz Chicago

The naive art painter, David Berkowitz Chicago has exhibited his art in almost every big art center, including Vienna, Paris, Rome, London New York, Shanghai, Miami, and many others. He decided to become an artist at a young age. He listened to himself and, fortunately, had support from his close ones. He assumed that the quality of work and dedication must yield some results, so he searched for interesting competitions and participated in them.

Today, David Berkowitz Chicago, who is a School of Art Institute of Chicago graduate, is equally known for his sculpting and painting skills. At the same time, he is equally impressed with drawing and sculpting, which are constantly interwoven. When he satisfies his hunger for painting he moves to sculpt and vice versa. Both painting and sculpting are basin media and visual expression media, only drawing is defined by two coordinates, while the sculpture is drawn in a three-dimensional space.

Life Viewed as a Maze of David Berkowitz Chicago’s Art Installations

In the Collection Room of the Williamsburg Art Center, as part of a project featuring art installations on mirrors, artist David Berkowitz Chicago exhibited several new pieces, which can be seen until April 24, 2019.

In addition to numerous guests and public audience, along with David Berkowitz Chicago, the exhibition was opened by art reviewer Damien Haslet and creative producer Jakub Rake, who on that occasion read an excerpt from a letter, written by the museum’s curator: As if mirrors can absorb the richness of nature in all its splendor and profuseness, intertwining with the artist’s perception in unbreakable weaving. The richness of David Berkowitz Chicago’s artwork that stretches and shines through the smooth reflection of the mirrors, becomes an expression of vibrant authorship, which undoubtedly announces yet many accomplishments.

Life viewed as a maze, a network of possible life paths, blind and open ones; landscapes as special points inside the labyrinth, a kind of resting spot in this procession. Places that feed and energize people with power, places of inspiration, to continue the journey. A row of six mirrors of David Berkowitz Chicago begins with the guardian of the labyrinth and all those who are walking around.

The exhibit reviewer states how David Berkowitz Chicago created some of the compositions as geometric squares and rectangles (the city that is vanishing), while others melodious curves have taken on an organic form with an abundance of associations (the Guardian of the Labyrinth). With the color effects derived from the blues of lapis lazuli, green or purple, naïve painter David Berkowitz Chicago sometimes reduces color and calcite, peach crystal and onyx creating monochromic and black-white structures. The decision to neglect functionality has led to a change in the semantic level or a shift from the utilitarian object to the self-sufficient aesthetic work…this artwork can be considered an authentic contribution to our applied art.

Within the exhibition of artistic installations on mirror landscapes, David Berkowitz Chicago also exhibited some of his most recent paintings.

David Berkowitz Chicago on the Art of Painting

David Berkowitz Chicago

The contemporary painter David Berkowitz Chicago is a widely acknowledged naïve artist, with his own recognizable naive style, painting the memories of his childhood in primary colors. During the last 20 years in which he painted in a naive style, David Berkowitz Chicago exhibited his paintings in several galleries and public buildings in the US, and abroad. His work is in possession of private persons, naive art collectors, and institutions. Here, the artist shares his view on the art of painting.

When art takes a look within itself, then it is possible to call such an approach introverted. A great deal of the 20th-century art production emerged in direct dialogue with art, in interaction with its language and history. It can, therefore, appear to some, that many contemporary works of art primarily comment on the historical development of art, its indirect and immediate precursor. It's as if they are in some lasting controversy and resistance with them, or they admire and worship them. Many artists are looking for new ways within the well-known media. David Berkowitz Chicago mostly does oil and acrylic paintings.

In the desire to liberate the term art of painting from the burden of the past, we don’t rely on any specific artistic style, historical epoch or recent artistic trends. In a way, the name of this collection is desidologized. David Berkowitz Chicago shares in an interview for Patch, that he wants to avoid labeling art as an advanced self-conservative, which implies the terms good or bad art. This enables us to have a more unobtrusive view on modernism, neomodernism, and postmodernism - the most commonly classified works of this category.

The difference between old and new art, realism and modernism, which was expressed clearly by the most prominent advocates of modernism, American critic Clement Greenberg - While realistic art conceals the media by using art to hide art, modern art uses art to draw attention to art itself - can easily be applied to most part of modern and contemporary art today. The dictate of autoreferences, the insistence on the particularities of particular media, and ultimately the articulation of the work of art into the idea of the work, are all results of the same search and looking into their own innermost - the art media itself, which have been defining modern and contemporary art over the decades.

David Berkowitz Chicago Portrays Strength and Frailty

Chicago based artist David Berkowitz is an established painter with a peculiar style that is easy to recognize, and impossible not to love. This contemporary painter is distinguished by an original and unmistakable stylistic independence. The main motives in David Berkowitz’s work are nature and man. Somehow they complement each other so perfectly, that at times you simply can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. Clarity and precision, great use of light and unique technique, are just some of the things that make David Berkowitz Chicago one of the greatest contemporary painters.

His latest exhibition consists of a series of self-portraits, portraits, and human body display. In his work, David Berkowitz Chicago brings an inherent feeling. The suffering of man and nature is his preoccupation and eternal inspiration. In his compositions, he brings the relationship and contrast, the struggle of human toughness and the agility of nature, in balance. The body, with a lot of power, is often put in an unimaginable position, but it is still null and void compared to something higher. Therefore, his works are calm and serene.

Through the work of David Berkowitz Chicago, you can feel the strength of the muscles and the voice. It is possible to hear the cry and then stand before the silent photograph. And while you’re still hearing it inside your head, you’ll notice water. The artist depicts divine walking on the surface, while the water is intact, like glass. It mirrors the reality that brings balance and symmetry. He becomes one with the water, as he springs from it, and pounds in it. When he breaks the surface, he feels helpless and is reduced to a mirror that blurts the artistic moment. As a contrast to the above, the paintings also show his other side, his perfection that defies the weight of the human body.

The human body is strong but fragile. It's powerful but null and void. It is the place where the contradictions that are perfectly harmonized meet so that they make the ideal state. The body is a fascination and a medium in which artists achieve almost unimaginable things. David Berkowitz Chicago depicts the human body in his paintings, reshaping it to the most basic and most vulnerable form.

Interview with the Painter David Berkowitz Chicago

Recently we were lucky enough to get know the paintings of David Berkowitz Chicago, a painter born in Aurora (1943). We were amazed by its real-looking landscapes, its atmospheres, the autumn leaves on the roads and the magnificent reflections in the water. But the most surprising thing for us was the spontaneous strokes with which they were achieved.  Berkowitz’s paintings are fantastic impressionist paintings achieved with brushes and spatulas handled with great skill.

So we had the need to ask the painter some questions, and luckily David Berkowitz Chicago, with great kindness immediately agreed to give us an interview which we are sharing with you and the rest of our blog readers.

We urged you not to look for "step by step" details and tips on how to paint something, but to read the depth of the message that the artist transmits to us.

Interview with the painter David Berkowitz Chicago

How did you find your particular style of painting? Did it take you a long time to develop it?

David Berkowitz Chicago: You acquire the style with the craft, first you have a reference, an artist with whom you identify when working, then you have to take the leap and try to do something that identifies you, but above all, with your taste. The time depends on the "passion" you put.

Have you always painted landscapes or have you ever explored other subjects such as portraits, still life, etc.?

David Berkowitz Chicago: Especially, in the beginning, it is good to "chop" everywhere, in that way you define what you like, in my case I have even tried the abstract painting, it was a time of youth where it was very good to be a modern artist, the truth is that this journey was short, I felt that I was cheating myself and that it was not me. I have experienced different ways of working but more than anything to prove and to improve myself.

How is your process of inspiration and composition of the work in general?

David Berkowitz Chicago: I travel a lot, I look for areas where I know I will find what I like, Pyrenees, Alps, Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, etc. When I'm in these places, I take long walks and let the landscape seduce me, it can be a bend in a river, a sunset on a hilltop, or a fantastic forest in the fall. I have, my paintings and my camera, it depends on the time and the moment, I can make quick notes, (the best to learn to paint) and with the camera, I capture fleeting moments, which I then capture in the studio. In short, a bit of everything.

What is the most important lesson that has marked your career as a painter?

David Berkowitz Chicago: More than a lesson, after 40 years of painting, I remember the moments of my youth, where abstract art used to be modern, and I was tempted to continue on that path. I decided to do what I really felt, I had arguments, rejections etc. Now I am proud of my decision.

What final advice do you give our readers, who are often beginners or amateurs, to reach a professional level?

David Berkowitz Chicago: I think that with everything I have put above, they will have enough. Anyway, I will encourage them, it is not easy, but it is beautiful. At first, it may seem that nobody understands you, do not pay attention to false sycophants, family members, etc. A good exercise when you mount an exhibition in a place that you do not know is to mix between people as a spectator, listen to honest opinions, it hurts... but with pain, you learn. 

Note: You can read his biography here.