Dave’s Fine Art practice is divided between the traditional genres of still life and landscape in oil and soft pastel.
The still life paintings feature a variety of objects, some have a very personal story behind them and others are found objects with unknown stories of their own to tell.
Much of Dave’s landscape work is executed ‘en Plein-air’ meaning that he paint directly from the subject (in all weathers!) It’s a process very much concerned with capturing mood - not just about a certain place but the interaction between the space, the artist, and the atmosphere.
Dave West was born and raised in Swansea, South Wales and is now settled in Balbriggan, North County Dublin. He works across the areas of Fine Art, Art Tuition and Public and Community Arts including over 20 solo exhibitions to date in both commercial and publicly funded galleries.
Dave has exhibited widely in group exhibitions including many of the most prestigious societies and academies in Ireland and the UK. In 2023, 24 & 25 his still life oil paintings were selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He has been a regular exhibitor during the past decade at both the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Ulster Academy. In the UK he has shown with the Royal Society of Oil Painters, The Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, Royal Cambrian Academy, The New English Art Club and the Royal West of England Academy.
Dave is a member of, and exhibits regularly with the Irish Pastel Society, The United Arts Club and the Dublin Painting and Sketching Club. Dave Was elected ARSMA in 2025. In 2013 he won the Schminke Award for his nocturnal scene at the Pastel Society Exhibition and in 2025 won the Artist's Magazine award at the RSMA.
In 2018 and 2019 Dave was guest tutor at both the Dublin Plein Air festival and at ‘Art in the Open’, Europe’s largest Plein-Air painting festival held annually in Wexford. In 2017 and 2025 Dave won the first prize (Gold Mayoral Award). These pieces were subsequently acquired by Wexford County Council. In 2023 Dave took part in Paint Out Norfolk plein air event at which he won first prize.
Dave’s work is in numerous Private and Public collections including the Office of Public Works, The Dept of Finance (Northern Ireland) and Fingal County Council who have a series of 7 of his paintings hanging in Balbriggan Library.
He has taken part in several residencies including Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Cill Rialaig and Fingal County Council’s Boathouse project.
