DAVE EMBER

---

Dave Ember is an award-winning illustrator, designer, and fine artist. After graduating from Tyler School of Art in 1982, he moved west to work as a staff artist for the Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Examiner newspapers. He moved to Bend, Oregon in 1994 and established a freelance illustration career that spanned 40 years. He is retired now and is focused on personal art making projects.

Graphic Organic is Ember’s attempt to combine extreme graphic iconography with the organic nature of abstraction. Drawn with ballpoint,Sharpie pens and markers, the series might be defined as Abstract Folk-art, a fusion of genres which are ordinarily strangers. Growing up in Pennsylvania, surrounded by folk-art and the iconography of hex signs, may have been an influence. The drawings start with neither concept of an end product nor preliminary sketches. Ember puts pen to paper, creates a basic skeleton of line, and fills it in. Sometimes they remain abstract, and sometimes a path is suggested which leads to representation of known imagery. The goal is to explore and have fun.