Dave Bown: A Retrospective invites the viewer to follow the progression of the artist’s work. From his contemporary landscapes or American Dream series spawned the non–representational DPB panels, which lead to the Cipher wall work. The American Dream series presents the following issues: false sense of security, identity, theft, fraud, hyper–consumerism, individuality, social awareness, cloning, collections, trash, beauty, isolation, dependency, and the time intensive process of establishing selfhood. In addition, the art enthusiast may redefine their views on material goods, collections, waste or accumulating possessions. Dave’s DPB series involves filling domestic items such as: bubbles, spheres, capsules and inflatable objects with paint. Employing a technique that he is still developing, DPB or “Deposit the Paint in the Back,” Dave produces works by filling bubble wrap with paint.

At the recommendation of his artist brother Ryan Bown, Dave investigated Chaos Theory. Dave’s series of sculpture relief paintings celebrate Chaos Theory, which ultimately supposes that beauty and order are created from randomness. Each dome is placed at random to render a nonrepresentational image. A DPB panel presents the critical eye with a vivid abstract, a conceptual puzzle, and a myriad of aesthetically pleasing patterns. Dave’s most recent work, Cipher, are encrypted messages. After the artist conducted an intense study of existing codes and nonverbal forms of communication, he invented a language based on six colors. By assigning color combinations to represent alpha and numeric values, Dave is able to communicate in a nontraditional manner.
Dave invests his time by researching and exploring new techniques, questioning what is and is not art and in making a significant contribution to the index of visual culture. Dave thrives on discovering, developing, and inventing new processes.

Dave has cleverly illustrated how a young artist has been commodified and become an icon. As viewers experience this autobiographical environment what Dave Bown is, will vary dramatically depending on who is playing the role of interviewee. The artist, friends / family, publishers, curators, directors and collectors have each created a Dave Bown to satisfy their necessity to classify and find order.