Who Is Davey Cadaver?
by J.W. Boys

The first time I even heard Davey Cadaver's name mentions was by Dre Sierra from Oregonized Gallery when they were planning
the Take A Walk In Our Shoes show. He told me, "...there is some cat showing his work and he asked me what people would think about the name Davey Cadaver?" I responded by saying "What kind of a name is that?" I'd never seen his work, but didn't mind passing a little judgement on his chosen art name. But his
entry was a large 4' x 8' painting that was really good. I was impressed.

Cadaver has only been in Portland, Oregon for two years but he's been busy the entire time working his way into every underground art show that he can. He lived in Bend, Oregon for some time, then he lived in Los Angeles, California for a few months before moving to Portland.
I asked him whether the art scene had any effect on his work and he was adamant that it didn't. He felt like it was all a show. "I felt like the artists there were vampires and the people showing up were vampires and...it seemed counter productive I guess. I pressed him to explain what he meant by and he said. It's kind of hard to explain, I guess it's sort of a spiritual thing, kind of the aura that you get when you walk past people. It's like the people thought it was all about them, I guess that's what it was. It's like some people that showed up were there for free drinks so they were sucking the life out of the party and then the artists then also were trying to suck attention away from those people. And it doesn't really work like that, it's supposed to be about art, it should be about the art on the wall and should have very little to do with the physical bodies that show up. I think that art tends to speak for itself...really good art you can't talk about...if it's really
good most the time you can't form a verbal response to it."

I knew coming into the interview, based on his posts on Facebook, that he has some real hangups about showing work online and even trying to sell it there. He feels that his work cannot be truly appreciated online because you cannot see the texture or the size of it. He is a fan of a more organic traditional view of showing work. He added that is not able to receive any energy off of work that is posted online. He gave the example of seeing Rothko's work for the first time in person, was completely different than seeing it in books. He wrote it off initially because he thought, "This is dumb, this is a square, I don't care. And I even walked past the exhibit twice and looked at everything else. I finally went back the third time and I decided to just look at it. And it hit me when I finally saw him in person. I don't know if I was...not ready for it yet subconsciously and I was maybe holding myself back because I knew it was going to hit me, but it did...there were three pieces specifically that carried a lot of emotion and whether that was his intent to bring that across of if it was just because I felt it and was responding to the certain colors used, I saw a lot inside of it beyond just a color. I definitely think that it has a human and spiritual quality to it that you are really not going to pick up on, online."

Cadaver has spent his life painting off and on for the most part. His dad is retired from the military and is a full time artist. Cadaver's Dad would paint abstract paintings and often times Davey would draw a version of the painting. His dad more times than not would tell him that, "...he liked my work better than what he was doing." Hearing that helped his confidence level but mostly he was just doing it because it was fun.

I asked him what the response to his work is around the United States. He's getting purchases from around the country but he does not take communications seriously on social networking
sites where much of the response to his work happens. He has not had many chances to show his work outside of Portland. He said he feels, "...if someone else is going to rep your work they
really need to believe in you and if they believe in you then part of that is probably rooted in knowing that they can cash in on you, which is a symbiotic relationship that's fair. But I think what it really starts with is believing in yourself, because if you can't represent yourself and just expect that everything is going to happen for you based on luck...I don't think that's the case. As
an artist, there is a lot more that goes into it than painting, more than research, reading, math, business and chemical properties of paint."

He told me he's going to school for the financial aid. "By spending that money on housing, I have more than enough art supplies to keep making stuff, so it pretty much only matters having the space to do it." He is enrolled and is attending Portland Community College for art.

Cadaver is content to just keep making art, but he doesn't have a plan for where he wants to be in the next ten years. Instead of trying to focus on impressing any one specific gallery he thinks it would be easier to just go hang his work in that gallery. It's his opinion that artists waste too much time perfecting their craft so that they can win the approval of one gallery. "I kind of look at it like paying my dues, sort of, but at the same time I just want to be everywhere so I don't really care if it's a coffee shop or a gallery at this point." He says he is not trying to get work in art galleries anywhere and it is on purpose. He wants to keep painting so he can keep developing his style and learning with each new work. "I'm not going into this with any sort of a plan and then whatever happens happens. I feel like it's more honest that way", he said.

Cadaver never plans out a painting, he paints something and then paints over top of it and paints on top of it again until the image reveals itself to his eye. He said his involvement with metaphysics really do not come through, at least not  intentionally. He does recognize that some of the symbols do appear in his works but he maintains that they occur naturally. "I look at it more as I'm a conduit and not really focusing on my or how I carry myself. I think it's sort of a downfall to a lot of artists...I think that people worry too much about how they are going to be perceived and so they think that they have to build a persona and play the part and you are going to get burnt out on that eventually. And it's not going to be honest at all, where as if you don't pick a part to play and you just are yourself one hundred percent of the time then you are gonna make something new that no one else has seen before because not that many people are themselves. So it's kind of easy to stand out when your just being honest, which is what most people should do anyway." --I would be remiss if I did not call attention to Cadaver's stage name and the striking similarity in his work to that of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Those small things aside I have to say for a younger artist he seems to have the wisdom of a seasoned artist and that is not a norm in the art world.

If you would like to see more of his work you can simply visit his website.