The Artist Gallery

About the Online Exhibition

The Artist Gallery features portraits for Austin Artists Entrepreneurs who have participated in the City of Austin’s Artist Career Training Program.

About the Artist

David Carrales received a camera at age 17 and thought it was the worst Christmas gift ever. Little did he know where the camera would take him as a visual artist in pursuit of documenting beauty. He has been producing exhibitions of his photographic work since 2016. He is looking to expand the Artist Gallery project to encompass a wider slice of the Austin’s art community, tentatively titled, The Artist Continuum.

Inspiration for the Exhibition

Corner Portraits

My first full-length portrait project was in 2016 and was inspired by the work of Irving Penn. In the late 1940s, Irving Penn experimented in his portraiture work by pushing together two studio flats to create a narrow space. His portraits shot in this style were called his “Corner Portraits.”

I was inspired to replicate his “Corner Portraits” during 2016 East Austin Studio Tour. Below is a gallery featuring two intrepid friends named Sarah and Uma.

Hey There, Rollergirl!

Building on the experience of the corner portraits, I did a full-length portrait project featuring the Texas Rollergirls, which evolved into my 2017 East Austin Studio Tour exhibition, “Hey There, Rollergirl!” This project ran from 2017-2019, and resulted in three volumes of images.

Artist Headshots

The pandemic put a halt to my photographic pursuits, until December 2020 when I had a chance to do some headshots for my fellow AmeriCorps artists-in-residence at Imagine Art. I made the boring formal headshot of Sujal Manohar and then I told her I wanted to shoot her as the artist and gave her this instruction before the shoot: “The headshot can be a rather restrictive creative activity for both the photographer and the subject. If you are interested, please bring something that you feel expresses you as an artist. It could be a prop, artwork or something worn". I told her my inspiration for the creative headshot came from a portrait class in 2009. The teacher hired models, gave us a few minutes instruction, and then set us free to shoot with the models. I didn’t learn a damn thing, but I got many cool pics by accident. One of the cool pics happened when a model picked up a paintbrush and mimicked applying lipstick.

Artist Career Training

Fast forward to the first days of September 2022 and I am frantically trying to come up with a concept for a pitch project to complete the application for the City of Austin’s Artist Career Training program. I wrote something about doing some artist portraits and thought I would have some time to flesh out the details if I got accepted. Holy cow, I got accepted and at the first day of class it kinda sounded like the pitch was a requirement. Yikes.

My pitch project ended up being The Artist Gallery, an exhibition of artist portraits for the Dougherty Arts Center in 2024. After the pitch, my mind started rethinking aspects of the project and after receiving encouragement and support from the City of Austin (in particular, my business coach at the City, Katherine Sobel), I successfully pitched the city to support The Artist Gallery exhibition at the 2023 Austin Studio Tour.

Influences

Richard Avedon

I mentioned replicating Irving Penn’s corner portraits. I would be remiss if I did not mention Penn’s contemporary, Richard Avedon, as an influence. I recently read his excellent biography, What Become a Legend Most, by Philip Gefter. Brilliant. Avedon wasn’t the first person to shoot against a stark white background, but he was the one who made it a defining signature of his portrait work. Avedon influenced my work with the Texas Rollergirls, and I believe there will be some semblance in the portraits from The Artist Gallery.

Acknowledgements

Matt Cohen and the staff at Austin Camera and Imaging (print production). Doc List at Doc List Photography (studio and light rental). Raul Garza and the team at TKO Advertising Austin (Exhibition Design & Promotion). Xavier Zarate, Joy Miller, JuaQuin Gonzalez, Katherine Sobel at City of Austin Small Business Development Division. All the artists who participated in the project, and brought their authentic selves to the decisive moment. To my family and friends who have supported my own artist journey, what a wild, wonderful trip it continues to be.