David Norton

Artist

Artist David Norton was born and lives in Dublin. His love of nature and the outdoors greatly inspires and influences his work.

Combining over 25 years of experience working in the photographic industry with his innate love of Nature has enabled him to create a body of work that is both unique and evocative. His images portray his love of the natural world and the complex patterns that can be found within it.

As his style evolved, he started utilising macro photography allowing him to observe and capture the intricate yet hidden beauty of wood and stone. This finely-honed technique, which is unique to David, has allowed him to produce and develop great detail in his art.

His passion to unveil the beauty of what lies beneath has led him to reveal in his work the patterns, shapes and forms that would ordinarily be hidden from the human eye.

“I have always wanted to create art that invites the viewer to really delve in, explore and get lost in the finer details. Art is subjective and what I love and find intriguing, is how each viewer sees different formations, configurations and structures that are arranged within each piece. Natural ‘entities’ reveal themselves to the viewer at a pace that is determined only by the viewers themselves and by their experiences”.

Scroll on to learn more about the art.

How It All Started

The Art

I find myself extremely fortunate…I get to combine my love of the outdoors and nature with the skills I have acquired from over 25 years working in the photographic industry. I own a commercial photography studio and while I do enjoy creating imagery for our clients, it’s while working on my art that I’m happiest and feel the most fulfilled.

Even though I’m truly blessed with a beautiful family & my health, I’ve spent years feeling that something was missing. There was a hole that needed to be filled. I craved to find something that I feel really passionate about. I wanted to wake each day looking forward to creating something that resonated with me.

One day while sitting in my garden I found myself day dreaming while looking intently at a piece of drift wood. It was a very interesting piece of wood that I had planned to mount on a plinth and turn into a display piece for the garden. The closer I looked, the more beauty I saw in this time & weather worn piece of wood. There were shapes, textures and patterns that really intrigued me. I fully believe that no matter how hard a human being would try, they wouldn’t be able to recreate these intricate details that nature had created. There was something so raw, yet so beautiful and surreal about the textures. I knew then and there that I wanted to try and somehow capture this natural beauty through the use of my camera and the right lighting.

It took many attempts to get a result I was happy with but when I finally had the piece completed, I found myself staring, transfixed in the natural beauty of the complex patterns that had emerged. I finally knew what it was like to create a piece of art that a viewer could ‘get lost in’. Since then, I’m constantly on the look out for the next piece of wood, stone or element that I can work with to try and unveil its hidden beauty. I hope you get some enjoyment from seeing up close the beauty in nature that surrounds us every day but sometimes lies hidden.

All the best,

David