About this new exhibit, Carnegie Center curator Daniel Pfalzgraf writes, “David Iacovazzi-Pau is a portrait painter, and a gifted one at that. But what interests me the most in what David does is seeing his work as a process. He doesn’t just make a one-off portrait of his subject, and then leave it at that. He spends a great deal of time drawing and painting multiple studies from various visits with his subjects, not just getting a physical understanding of them, but also developing a sense of their inner identity and personality through the time spent with them. He’s particularly adept in providing just the right amount of information needed for the viewer to get a real sense of who that person is.” Pfalzgraf continues, “All the subjects in this series of paintings are people who are rooted within our local cultural community, so many of them will be recognizable to our visitors. I have a feeling, though, that even if you didn’t know the subjects personally before the show, you will still leave here with a deeper understanding of the kind of people they truly are.”

Born 1978 in Luxembourg, David Iacovazzi-Pau began his education in fine arts from the age of 15 in Belgium. He later attended the Centre Académique des Arts in Luxembourg and immigrated to the United States in 1997, studying at Indiana University Southeast. Iacovazzi-Pau’s work focuses on the human figure and is a visual diary of the people he encounters. His series reveal different aspects of the sitters and the link between their physical appearance and personality. David writes, “My aim is to portray idiosyncrasies and evoke the mood of the subject in order for the portrait to have an accurate likeness and affect. The work reflects what I sense about a person and is a documentation of my community.” He begins by taking multiple photographs of his subject, and then uses the photographs to create several drawings which become the source material for the paintings. The final result is a subjective impression of an individual and is representative of the relationship between the artist and the subject.

David Iacovazzi-Pau’s paintings have been the subject of group and solo exhibitions including “Worldwide Diversity through Portraiture” in Mainz, Germany; “Red Clay Survey, Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art” at the Huntsville Museum of Art; “57th Mid-States Art Exhibition” at the Evansville Museum of Art; and “25th Annual Juried Show” at the Contemporary Arts Center in Las Vegas. His work is represented in private and public collections such as Indiana University Southeast, the William F. Ekstrom Library Collections at the University of Louisville, and the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville, KY. David currently lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky. Visit www.davidiacovazzipau.com for more information.