UT alumni featured in London

University of Toledo alum David Eichenberg is rapidly becoming one of the hottest artists in the United Kingdom while working out of a studio in downtown Toledo.

"You can live anywhere now and still have access to a global market," Eichenberg said. "I'm pretty comfortable in Toledo. I grew up in Sylvania. This is a great area."

He is one of 55 artists featured in this year's BP Award Portrait Exhibition in London after winning third place in 2010 along with £7,000. He represented Ohio as a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2009.

"After the BP award last year, Go Figurative approached me and asked me if I wanted to be a poster child for their company so they could brand me," he said. "It's been a great experience and is unlike anything here."

Go Figurative was cofounded by Sally Perry and Janine Collins. The London-based company promotes all forms of figurative art.

"It's the dream every artist has where your job is to be in the studio making work," Eichenberg said. "They take care of everything else. It baffles me they take only 47 percent. Here it is 50 percent, and you can't get a gallery to send out an e-mail when you win an award or tell you who bought a piece. It's a totally different vibe."

For his art, Eichenberg manipulates a snapshot on the computer then does a carbon transfer from a printout to use in his paintings. He has been labeled a photorealist, but he views his art as realism.

"It may look photographic when I'm finished but it's not," he said. "An art writer from the UK categorized me as an intuitive artist. I'm pulling things that are relevant out of my life. It's not a formula. It's realism figurative. I don't have any desire to be a great figure painter. I use the figure to pull the viewer in, because people are attracted to figurative work. Once I have their attention, then I can deal with other issues. I just use it as a tool."

Eichenberg has left his mark on the art scene in Toledo with more than his paintings. He oversaw the Toledo Museum of Art's move to the Glass Pavilion and he was the visual coordinator for the "It's Reigning Frogs" art project.

"There's always a feeling as an artist that you want to be involved in the arts in your community," he said. "I still have that. I don't sell much locally at all, but I want to keep those venues open. On the other hand, you can't dwell on it and put all your energy into the local market. It cannot sustain you."

Eichenberg graduated from UT in 1998 with the Dean's Award. While attending school, he was a sculpture instructor at the TMA along with holding several assistant positions at the university.

"UT was a great school. Tom [Lingeman, UT professor of art] sucked me into sculpture big time," Eichenberg said. "I've never heard of any other school where students are treated like equals. You were never looked down on. I hear a lot of artists talk about how they weren't considered artists until they graduated. Tom was never like that."

Eichenberg nearly missed his calling by spending his freshman year majoring in physical therapy. After seeing an elderly patient die, he decided to change course.

"I couldn't deal with that on a daily basis," Eichenberg said. "I took some time off. It was my mother in-law who convinced me to take an art class. I took an art history class and was hooked from then on."

Eichenberg almost missed his calling again by majoring in sculpture with only a minor in painting.

"My painting in school was horrible," he said. "I was an abstract expressionist. It was very loose and nothing representational.

"I took a sculpture class with Tom Lingeman and really liked the open approach he took to it. I was pretty successful, but it just wasn't fulfilling. I couldn't get rid of my mental blocks. I wanted to do a lot of realism, and I just don't have the technique or training to do that."

This led Eichenberg to the realization his true passion lies in painting.

"I sat down one day and had to make the decision to go get a job or do what I wanted to do since I first took an art history course," he said. "I locked myself in the basement at my old house. I looked through books and talked to people to figure out how to do what I wanted."

While Eichenberg was his own worst critic starting out, his wife saw potential from the start.

"She said something to me after the first couple of my paintings that are similar to what I do now," Eichenberg said. "She said I could be a pretty good regional sculptor, or I could be a much better international painter. It opened my eyes. You don't see it when you're doing it. I was hoping she was onto something and went from there."

Eichenberg's wife has also been an inspiration on the canvas along with their two daughters.

"They are comfortable images to work with because you know their features without having to look at imagery," he said. "If you paint something wrong, you know it's wrong. I catch myself correcting things nobody else would ever know were wrong."

With this freedom, Eichenberg plans to continue developing as an artist.

"I don't want to be like a Monet where I crank out hundreds of the same image slightly changed," he said. "I want it to constantly be evolving so my work doesn't become stagnant. Each piece should be better than the last. That's my goal. Now I have a bigger body of work and it's all starting to fall in line. People are starting to see a progression throughout the work."

Along with evolving, he is striving to keep his art relevant.

"The job of the artist is almost like a historian," Eichenberg said. "You have to be contemporary. There has to be something about the time in which you live. A lot of artists leave the viewer behind because it's so far out there."