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For the past twenty-five years, David Adey’s work has explored themes of mortality, the human body, identity, and the fraught intersection between our physical bodies, our moral and spiritual lives, and the increasingly digitized and commodified world we inhabit.
Adey began his career in graphic design, specializing in branding, package design, and illustration, working for companies in New York, New Jersey, and San Diego. That experience was foundational and continues to inform his work. This influence is evident through his use of popular brands and consumer imagery of bodies culled from advertising and celebrity content, and most recently, videos from health, beauty, and pharmaceutical advertising.
His work was featured in the exhibition State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as the 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California. He has exhibited at many other public institutions in California, including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Torrance Art Museum; Oceanside Museum of Art; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster; California Center for the Arts, Escondido; LUX Art Institute, Encinitas; and the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla; in addition to the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Minneapolis Institute of Art; University of Nevada Las Vegas; The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Massachusetts; and Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
His work has been reviewed or featured in publications including Art in America, art ltd., LA Weekly, Wired, Installation Magazine, ArtScene, Artbound by KCET, The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego Home/Garden, Modern Luxury, American Craft magazine, and The Huffington Post.
David was the subject of a short documentary film, White Male Shooter, by filmmakers Andrew Norbeck and Jared Callahan, which documented his year-long exploration of guns and gun culture and the creation of the work for his solo exhibition with Quint Gallery, There Be Dragons. He was also the subject of an artist profile documentary film for KPBS San Diego, titled Art by Constraint, by filmmaker Dale Schierholt, which premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Adey earned his BA in visual art from Point Loma Nazarene University and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He lives and works in San Diego with his wife, Chereé, and their children, Dot and Charlie. He has been a Professor of Art and Design at Point Loma Nazarene University since 2003.