David Ligare, “Boy with Goat”, 2021, Oil on Canvas, 182.9 x 122 cm, Lew Allen Galleries
David Ligare is an American contemporary realist painter. Comtemporary realism is an approach that uses straightforward representation but is different from photorealism in that it does not exaggerate and is non-ironic in nature.
Since 1978, David Ligare has focused on painting still lifes, landscapes, and figures that are influenced by Greco-Roman antiquity. Chief among his stated influences are the aesthetic and philosophical theories of the Greek sculptor Polykleitos and the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as well as the work of the 17th-century classical painter Nicolas Poussin. A resident of Salinas, California, his paintings often depict the terrain of the central Californian coast in the background.