Like a modern day Hopper, Kapp formally transcribes the New York City landscape and poeticises the everyday aspects of urban life. Buildings, cars, bridges, intersections, are appropriated for their linear qualities so the paintings can be seen simultaneously as abstractions and as affectionate representations of the buzzing metropolis.

"Though not detailed or sharply focused, Mr. Kapp's paintings are almost photographic in the way they freeze action, crop the visual field at oblique angles and capture stark contrasts of glare and shadow. They have a dreamy, mildly hallucinatory air and a mood of Hopperesque melancholy . . . Mr Kapp's angular compositions, decisive gestures and painterly energy reflect the harsh kinetic beauty of the city itself"

"Much of the interest in Kapp's work stems from his mixed style, as he shifts effortlessly from abstraction to realism and back again . . . Kapp's art is both physical and conceptual, a material demonstration of painting's ability to represent, and, at the same time, a reflection of the artist's awareness of intellectual aspects of art-making."

"His bird's eye views of lower Manhattan pulsate with deft brushwork and a kind of signature calligraphy that renders cars and trucks into staccato zips of paint. Large areas of light an shadows are gouged and plowed out of off-white, halo-blue and black. For all the motion and physical activity, these are quietly appealing works. They feel like the silence that follows traffic noise, or the emotional distance of standing behind plate glass."

David Kapp was born in New York City in 1953. Influenced by the New York School, he went to the Walden School in New York, received a BFA from Windham College in Putney, Vermontand an MFA from Queens College CUNY. His work has been shown all over North America, including David Beitzel Gallery, Manhattan Art, Alpha Gallery and Albright-Knox Art Gallery. His paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Brooklyn Museum, NY and the Museum of the City of New York, NY. Kapp's awards include the American Academy & National Institute of Arts & Letters, 1995 and 1985, the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the CAPS Fellowship in Painting.

Awards:

• American Academy & National Institure of Arts & Letters, 1994
• American Academy & National Institure of Arts & Letters, 1985
• Rosenthal Foundation Award, 1985
• CAPS Fellowship in Painting, 1982
• Hassam Purchase Prize, 1979

Public Collections:

• Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
• Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY
• Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
• North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC