David Opdyke
David Opdyke, an artist from Ridgewood, New York, undertook a massive project that took little over a year for it to be completed, and no detail was too insignificant to be included. Opdyke’s
This Land stands at eight feet in height and sixteen feet in length. His multifaceted mural is fashioned from vintage American postcards that display examples of the “American Dream.” There are depictions of bridges and highways symbolizing our advancement as a society as well as natural forests and canyons creating the idea of the ultimate sublime, meshing technology and nature. Standing back from the mosaic of images, it appears to be part of a greater composition that looks almost serene like rolling hills and a sunrise in the crest of the peaks that stretch across the top of the composition. However, as the viewer comes in to examine the overall piece more closely, the vision of a pristine landscape melts away at the sight of tornadoes tearing through landscapes, networks of oil pipelines breaking barriers stretching across different compositions, fires running rampant, and a whole slew of apocalyptic imagery.
Opdyke received his BFA in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Cincinnati in 1992, and his work has exhibited his work all over the country.
This Land
Opdyke, David
2019
