“Like Rembrandt and Van Gogh before him, Pearson continually interrogated his own physical appearance, and through it his own character. Though the influence of Van Gogh in particular is apparent in a number of these works, what is particularly striking about them are the constant shifts of both mood and style. Every time Pearson asked the fundamental question – ‘Who am I?’ – he came up with a different answer. Yet these multiform answers cohere, when one sees them together, into a complex whole. What one has here is the multiform nature of contemporary existence, yet, at the same time an acknowledgement that, in Pearson’s case at least, all these different appearances had their roots in a single core – one of driven, obsessive creativity.” Edward Lucie-Smith
The majority of Dave’s self-portraits appear to have been painted during the 1980s and 90s.