David Baggarly Exhibition: Series Transversus

Series Transversus, #8 12" x 12", 2005 oil on canvas David Baggarly

Baggarly’s work deals with the intersections of opposites: the divine with the human, darkness and light, the ancient with the modern. Done in oil in an abstract style, his paintings feature rich jewel tones and find their inspiration in both religious icons and his love of modern art.

While Baggarly doesn’t strictly adhere to the symbolism found in iconography, he does borrow from the tradition. The color yellow, for example, may represent the Spirit of God, truth, life or the mind, while purple may stand for penitence, suffering, royalty or the priesthood. Shapes, too, can have meaning. A cluster of grapes may speak of the blood of Jesus; thorns, of his execution. And like the icon painters of the past, Baggarly creates his art as an act of reverence, devotion and prayer to God.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Baggarly earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Since then, he has exhibited extensively in New England, in the Maryland/Washington, D.C., area, and throughout the United States. More than 500 of his paintings hang in private, corporation and institutional collections.

Baggarly has received numerous grants from such organizations as the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Lyda Ebert Family Foundation, and the Mayor’s Council on the Arts in Baltimore. He is represented by Rogers Gallery in Mattapoisett, Mass., Foxhall Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Fine Art Metropolis in Rhode Island.