David Buller

1950-2001

Photo credit: Paul Casselman

David Buller was a Toronto-based artist and respected professor in the Visual Studies Department at the University of Toronto. He graduated from The Ontario College of Art in 1973 and completed an MFA at Concordia University in 1985.

A painter for more than twenty-five years, David’s practice evolved as he developed as an artist and matured as a man.

During the first half of his career, David used expansive canvases to experiment with space, colour and the application of paint. These works are formally challenging and charged with emotion.

In David's later paintings, homoerotic images of leather and denim are playfully juxtaposed with icons of gay male sexuality found in art history, contemporary advertisements and popular culture. These works combine photography and painting to evoke places or states that are fantastic, threatening, or both.

David was found murdered in his office at the University of Toronto on January 18th, 2001.

The investigation is ongoing.

History Counsels Patience, 2001. Acrylic and collage on canvas. More »