Hyperrealist’s Talent Lauded by Ferrari Designer
David Dron is a young freelance artist and illustrator. For a week, visitors had an opportunity to see his hyperrealist water-color and pencil sketches at Art Palace, Tbilisi. GEORGIA TODAY went along to find out what makes him tick.
David Dron is a freshman of the International School of Design coming from a course of industrial design at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. His career, it seems, is rocketing.
“My first introduction to design happened when I was only five, at the Youth Technicians’ Club, where I met Zviad Tsikolia, a prominent Georgian designer,” Dron told us. “The model cars I saw there made a strong impression on me. Before that, I was drawing for fun, but when I drew a black Porsche, I realized I was going in the direction of hyperrealism.”
Cars are an on-going theme in his works, yet the 22-year old has no car of his own. “It’s too stressful to drive in Tbilisi,” he says.
But he does have a computer- the entrance of which into his life encouraged him further in the techniques of hyperrealism.
Dron says that there are very few hyperrealists in Georgia. “It requires a lot of observation, nerves, patience and concentration. First and foremost, you should love your job very much. The most difficult sketch I did was a Mustang that I spent over a year on. My average start-to-finish time is four weeks. I basically paint from the Internet. The main goal for me is to paint so that the pictures have an impact on spectators.”
Legendary models like the Lamborghini Miura, Lamborghoni Countach, etc are also something Dron takes great interest in. The latest exhibition at Art Palace was dedicated to cars, with just three portraits of his collection on display, showing Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn and Winston Churchill. On the back of Audrey’s portrait, Giorgetto Giugiaro, the designer of Ferrari and Lamborghini, on a visit to Georgia in 2012, had written “Bravo” and praised the artist for his talent. “I painted Audrey when I was 17 as a gift to my mom. It is one of my best pencil sketches. I went to an event in Batumi where Guigiaro was visiting with his son, and showed him my work. I was still in public school then. It was a great day in my life- I’ll never forget it. He took off his sunglasses and put on glasses just to see my Audrey better,” David remembers in rapture. Reportedly, the portrait of Churchill was an order from his American neighbor, as was Chaplin.
He remembers one interesting story: “One day, at the age of 14, I saw a red Ferrari for the first time in Tbilisi. I was delighted. My mum wouldn’t let me near it but I went back. Walking around it I saw the owner, an Italian businessman, with an interpreter, sitting inside the car. He asked what I was doing. I told him I was fond of cars and showed him some of my sketches in my phone. He was very interested and asked me to show him the pictures themselves. I took a taxi and brought them to him immediately. He liked them a lot and offered me a job. That is how my talent helped me to find work at the age of 14.”
Car design, concept-art, industrial design – this is an incomplete list of directions in which the artist works with pleasure. And he is in demand in Europe. The European School of Design says Dron could get a 100 percent scholarship. Dron says: “I have two options: either graduate from the International School of Design, or quit and continue getting an education abroad,” he confides. We wait with interest to see where this talented young man will end up.
Maka Lomadze