David Foxcroft received the Diploma in Fine Arts from the Alberta College of Art in 1977, and began to exhibit regularly in Calgary through 1988. During that time, he was awarded two Canada Council Project Grants and two Alberta Culture Project Grants. His work is published in: Young Contemporaries ’80, London Regional Art Gallery; A Measure of Success, the Alberta College of Art, 1985; and Artists of Alberta, the University of Alberta Press, 1980. In the last fifteen years he has continued to make art in his studio in Cochrane while managing FrameCo Custom Picture Framing in Inglewood, Calgary.
David Foxcroft confesses to magpie-like attraction to glittery objects and underlying tendencies to hoard. He professes deep gratitude to his wife Katherine for helping to keep these inclinations in check. Nonetheless, Foxcroft’s quirks are quintessential to his art form and chaos is essential for the chaos. For the artist, a dishevelled pile of junk is greeted with sheer delight. Foxcroft explains how his brain involuntarily switches into a mode similar to a slow-motion movie and an arranged sequence of colour, content and structured abstraction is observed in the pandemonium. Like a large intricate jigsaw puzzle, the artist diligently positions, removes, pivots, and returns objects and fragments, maneuvering each until an obvious cohesiveness is divulged.
Foxcroft’s fascination with interiors is exemplified by the strategic placement of colour, tonal variances and mixed media miscellany. References to his knowledge of art history, everyday occurrences and life in general are randomly yet precisely revealed. By happenstance, certain objects are favoured and re-emerge on different surfaces. Images are often repeated and reversed while constructions are mirrored in print form creating an additional artistic declaration.