Arrangement of Aerial Images. Insert Yourself. Version Two. Graphite, Enamel, Oil on Canvas. 80″ x 48″. 6 Panels. 20″ x 16″

In the late ’70s, David Disko was a firefighter for the BLM in Northeastern Utah, often transported to fire sites via helicopter. Being able to view the landscape from the air, the experience transformed his way of seeing the land revealing its larger form, emerged contours unseen from the ground, trees, and rock becoming patterns of color and shadow. Working later in the architectural field, he became acquainted with topographic maps, enjoying the way cartographers use color and line to convey specific information. Recently, GPS, satellite mapping and Google Earth interested him in new ways to view the
world.

At Art Santa Fe 2018, three of his Artworks were awarded “Art Santa Fe Selects”.
David Disko says about his artworks: “I depict landforms like an amalgam of a cartographer, architect and camouflage designer might. My process is to take apart the landscape and re-assemble it, creating objects and images that tell a story. Sometimes the story is personal, an experience that I had at a particular place, others it is about light and the passage of time, or can be a place depiction by legend or account. I combine concepts of information and disinformation, form and abstract quality of maps or aerial photography to describe places I know or want to know more about. Three places in New Mexico, my home for 30 years, occupied my imagination: Archuleta Mesa, Mt. Taylor, and the Valles Caldera. Five elements are common in my work: the background hue combining New Mexico colors, soil, and plants lightened by the sun; paint drips as north/south axis; grids that tie the composition providing scale, objects’ proximity and patterns; as in topographic maps, color differentiates elevation’s areas from others in several thousand foot increments, I use eight colors, although most inhabited lands are less
then several thousand feet in elevation, so my palette derives from a Himalaya’s map; I use contour lines to delineate changes in elevation and define areas in the overall image, leaving lines to go their own way inside them, so portions of the images become fanciful doodle from a daydream.”

David Disko, a BFA, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, has recently exhibited at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art’s 46thinternational Art Exhibition”, Brownsville, TX; the Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque, NM; the Farmington Museum, Farmington, NM; and the Cloyde Snook Gallery at Adams State University, Alamosa, CO. Disko exhibited at the Contemporary Art Projects Booth in Scope Art Fair 2018.

At Art Wynwood 2019, he will present a wall installation entitled Arrangement of Aerial Images, Insert Yourself! Version Two. The artist says about his attractive creation: “Satellites pass over the earth every day, ticking off rows of photographic images. I imagine having access to these images, selecting those that spark my interest, then arranging them into pleasing patterns. Looking at aerial images, I think about what it would be like to insert myself into them. What would the terrain be like here, what about
the sky? How would it be different over there? I invite viewers to insert themselves into these works and take a look around.”