Biography of David Jon Kassan - Essay Example

David Jon Kassan was born on February 25, 1977, in Little Rock Arkansas. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn NY. Kassan has been able to travel around the world conducting workshops at various institutions as well as teaching painting classes. He received a BFA award from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University in 1999. He continued his education in Manhattan at The National Academy and the Art student league of New York (Philips 2007, 36).

Kassan received an award from the Portraits Society America Communication Art magazine. His works and paintings were influence by John Sloan who was a realism artist, Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg, who made greater contributions in realism art (Carpenter 2004, 130). He was also inspired by a trip he made to Italy in 2003 which was facilitated by the Newington-Cropsy Travel Grant he had won and which allowed him to travel and study in various countries (American Arts Quarterly 2007, 34). His development also included sketch studies of the various masterworks he came across to enhance his skills.

Kassan is most known for his life-size hyper-realism portraiture. His knowledge of human anatomy extensively helped him in the understanding of the muscular structure beneath the skin making his work appear to be real and with life thus conveying emotion to people when they view them (Philips 2007, 34). Kassan has also kept up to date with the latest technology by doing a demonstration on finger paint on is apple iPad which was a great hit on YouTube and went viral in six months with one million views.