Artist Interview: David Van Eyssen
David Van Eyssen is a multimedia artist whose work reflects his fascination with time, memory, and the beauty of impermanence. Originally from London, he started as a painter and installation artist, later expanding his creative journey to Los Angeles, where he made a name for himself in entertainment and advertising. His art practice combines his painterly instincts with his experience in filmmaking to create video-based work, site-specific projections, virtual and extended reality pieces, AI-infused photography, lenticular images, and 2.5D prints.
In his art, memory and impermanence intersect, inviting viewers to see transformation rather than loss. Through self-portraits that obscure his presence, videos that merge and reverse years of imagery, and lenticular pieces that compress time, David explores what he calls the “sensation of personal impermanence” — a poetic look at how time and identity can vanish yet continue to transform.
David's creative journey began early — he exhibited at Goldsmiths College of Art at just 14, two years after building his first personal computer. His work now resides in private collections across the U.S. and Europe, with support from technology sponsors like Varjo, LG Electronics, and Panasonic.
We asked David about his art, creative process, and inspirations.
Encounter, extended reality, MOCA London
Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?
At ten, I was fascinated by the idea that technology could transform us. I divided my free time between drawing, and soldering chips and transistors on circuit boards with my computer engineer step-father. When I was painting and creating installations in my early 20s, electronics were embedded in my pieces — from computer parts collaged into painted books, to hidden timers that set off recorded conversations. After installing a piece for a collector who developed video games, I began experimenting with interactive storytelling, which led to a career in Los Angeles.
I didn’t think about making art again until I’d recovered from a serious illness. Without a clear plan, I started assembling graphics, photographs, super-8 footage I’d shot as a child, and self-portraits taken on my iPhone into a series of video pieces that explored the passage of time. LG generously agreed to provide displays and projectors to show that early work.
New Publication: Mirror Mirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art
Excited to announce that my work will be appearing in the latest book by Dr. Michael Petry. Mirror Mirror, which explores the work of contemporary artists working with reflections, will be published by Thames & Hudson this November.
“David Van Eyssen was a well known new media creator when he became ill. He has said that ‘During several years of cancer treatment, I took photographs of myself with my phone, recording surgeries and side-effects, and using the camera to confirm my existence.’ In recovery, he has gone on to explore his self portraiture practice. For his series, A Slim Volume of Poetry In No Particular Order, he temporarily installed and broke large mirrors across Los Angeles. These startling works hide as much as document, and the viewer must work hard to seek him out. The violence stilled in the fractured image has a clear bodily parallel. Using AI techniques in DisAppearance, sections around the edges of four self portraits were extended until the figures recede into an imagined vista.”
Memory and invisibility are recurring themes in your work. How do you approach these concepts artistically?
In my work, memory is a reflection of impermanence, and invisibility describes the sensation of personal impermanence — vanishing time, vanishing body. It’s not a pessimistic view, though. Impermanence can also been seen as the process of transformation, and that idea is expressed in various, intersecting ways in my practice — in photographic self-portraits that obscure or hide the photographer, in video works that merge and reverse images taken over a period of years, in lenticular pieces that optically compress time, and in extended reality installations where time becomes a sculptural element.
Most of my work is directed by chance events. The reflection photographs are good examples of this. I might have an idea, or intention, but I have to remain completely open to accident for the image I’m looking for to become observable. Because the images themselves are about my invisibility, and are taken on the streets, I wait for chance to guide the process.
Bling (In The Present Absence series), photograph
Your practice has taken you from painting and installation in London to innovative digital and technological explorations in Los Angeles. How did this evolution come about, and how have your experiences in both cities influenced your work?
I remember seeing a Francis Bacon in an LA restaurant, and thinking it looked so wrong — completely out of place. Context shapes the way we see things, and we all have our set of influences, or contexts. There are still echoes in my work of the excitement I was exposed to as a teenager in London — the shock of new voices in music, art, fashion, film, literature. The ethos of that era, the sense that you could challenge the status quo creatively still feels relevant, and although my work isn’t personal, it is interior, and explores complex questions. That’s probably a result of my London upbringing.
It’s hard to parse the influences precisely. In the end, it’s probably more about the people than the places. My father opened my mind to a world of art. He understood painting and sculpture like an artist. He was probably my most important influence in that respect. I think I've also come to see my practice as a continuum. I’m still painting when I work with photography and video, still thinking as an installation artist when I work with extended reality.
Self Behind Plastic (In The Present Absence series), photograph
How does your background as a filmmaker impact your approach to interactive installations and visual storytelling?
Many of the techniques and technologies are related, but I think — at least for me — that the relationship is deeper than that. Yes, familiarity with the toolset means that I don’t think about it when I work, so the connection to the work is more direct, but it's often forgotten, because film has a two-dimensional output, that filmmaking involves three-dimensional thinking — lighting, camera movement, visual effects — so in a way, it prepared me for the work I’m doing now. Staging and dramatic presentation are also critical aspects of an installation, even if there's no narrative structure in the conventional sense, and that’s something I learned as a filmmaker.
At a practical level, my practice has become more collaborative as the scale and complexity of the work develops. It’s a process I’m comfortable with, and I’m lucky to have found talented people to help me realize my ideas. I’m also programmed to work to a budget and schedule. The ideas flow spontaneously once I have a deadline. Structure brings freedom.
The use of augmented reality in your MOCA London exhibition, where visitors uncover a life-sized car crash, is both innovative and impactful. Can you tell us more about the piece?
Encounter is a 26ft sculpture with mass, but no weight. It began as a series of scans of crashed cars. The scans were stitched together into a two-car collision. I also scanned actors in my studio, dressed in suits. They float, caught in an embrace, above the point of impact. Mirrored spheres, and spinning shards of glass, were integrated into the piece. The recording of a real crash was used as ambient audio, but the composition was heightened and manipulated. I wanted the piece to sound like it looked. I also wanted it to be seen with mobile devices because of the way it’s displayed — as a site-specific installation inside a gallery or public space.
Encounter is a life-scale 26ft virtual sculpture exhibited at MOCA London Sep. 29-Oct. 26, and selected to be part of the London Frieze VIP Programme. Accompanying Encounter are related 2.5D works on paper, Figures in Flight (and Falling).
Credits:
Technical Design by Hunter Wengilowski; Sound by Damir Price; Actors Kolten Horner and Sof Puchley; Studio/photographic Assistant Kolja Wawrowsky
“Most visitors will be confounded by the experience. They might have seen a virtual reality (VR) or AR work in the past, but nothing on this scale, complexity or ability to shadow reality. The crash is visceral and hits you hard as the metal that crumples before your eyes. The flying glass looks sharp enough to cut you, and you have to duck around the work to completely see and understand how it works in the room. It is very easy to suspend disbelief and walk around the empty gallery as if it were the scene of a violent accident. The suspended embrace is touching, and for a digital work it is amazingly human and humane.”
The next phase of the work took me in a different direction. Collaborating with a printer, we fabricated 2.5D images of the figures in their wireframe state, almost melting into each other, so they become a single object. These large format works on paper, with dimensional surfaces, expand the original idea, but remain within an increasingly elastic definition of sculpture.
Encounter installation view, extended reality, MOCA London
Have there been any surprising or memorable responses to your work?
I’m always surprised by what happens at my shows. I see openings as unintentional performance art. At the MOCA London show, two events were taking place at the same time — the collision seen by visitors through their phone screens, and the scene of visitors wandering around an empty gallery, staring at an invisible object through their phones.
Encounter installation view, extended reality, MOCA London
What are some upcoming projects or exhibitions we can look forward to, and are there any new technologies you’re excited to explore in your future work?
I’m planning to show Encounter in the US, probably during Frieze LA in February 2025. This month, Thames and Hudson is publishing Mirror Mirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art, by Michael Petry, which has two of my pieces in it. I’m also working on a new extended reality piece, but I don’t want to say too much about that yet.
Ajar (In The Present Absence series), photograph
What else fills your time when you’re not creating art?
Spending as much time with my son as possible.
What is a dream project you’d like to make one day?
A living work of art.
A DisAppearance, generative extrapolations, pigment print on aluminum
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