Drawing on visual childhood memories of works by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Calder, David Michael Slonim reaches simultaneously for the playful and spiritual through structured, improvisational abstraction. Born in Miami, Florida (1966) and raised in New Jersey, Slonim received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 1988. For the next decade, he created images for advertising, editorial, and corporate clients including Wrigley’s Gum, Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated, IBM and T.G.I.Fridays. Turning to landscape painting in 1998, he continued studying artists like Diebenkorn, Mitchell and Rothko. His work naturally morphed toward abstraction as his focus shifted to the structure beneath the image. Slonim is also a prolific children’s author and illustrator, recognized for excellence by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Society of Illustrators. He speaks regularly to organizations and schools about creativity and life as a professional artist.