David L. Hutchinson is a concept-based artist who resides in Westchester County, NY. He focuses on the nature of communication, particularly the juncture between visual and written languages. A central device he developed for his artistic practice involves a chromatic alphabet as a stand-in for written text. The tool used is a simple one, a graphic alphabet based on color names: a=aquamarine, b=blue, c=crimson, d=dove-gray, e=emerald, etc. Employing this approach enables David to build images that are intrinsically infused with coded language - in a similar manner to historic painters who created images utilizing well known coded objects (think of the pomegranate, fig, or apple in religious paintings).  

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, David became interested in how communication occurs between trees in the forest. After researching the topic, he began to make plein air drawings in the forest nearby. His technique emphasized listening and experiencing trees in their natural setting in an effort to sense-out their communications. The resultant drawings call to mind images of brain synapses firing (an appropriate metaphor). A few years have now passed, and his forest drawings have gone through various iterations. The emphasis has now shifted to recognizing that the viewer is always part of the viewed. That is, the viewer brings all of their seemingly tacit life experiences to bear when investigating and interpreting nature.