Everything You Didn't Know You Always Wanted to Know about David V. Matthews
by Subverterus
(updated and revised February 28, 2006)
Well, he himself has told me quite a bit. His own website, Coconut Orangutan, also helped a great deal, as did his defunct site Pixel Stupor. I also consulted the various personal ads/profiles he's placed over the years on-line (see below). And I dug up newspaper and zine articles by and/or about him (a complete list coming soon, promise!). Plus I kept my ears open around Pittsburgh for DVM-related gossip.
OK, so could we start with the Dave basics--his birthday, his family, his upbringing, etc.?
Certainly. David V. Matthews (no idea what the "V." stands for) was born November 12, 1965. Other well-known people born on November 12: Neil Young, Charles Manson. DVM has two sisters (born in 1967 and 1968) and a brother (born in 1971). DVM lives in Aliquippa, PA, a town Madonna once called a "white ghetto"; she has relatives who live there. And speaking of music, Henry Mancini grew up in West Aliquippa--a separate town?
I don't know how well DVM gets along with his family, or if artistic ability runs in it.
What is his artistic history, anyway?
In a 1995 interview in the Pittsburgh music/culture magazine Fusion, DVM said he'd started drawing in 1969 at age 3-and-a-half. The women in a TV commercial for a hair dye called For Brunettes Only had turned him on so much he "had to draw" them. "So, my first sexual response was to draw. Isn't that peculiar?"
In 1988, he graduated from Edinboro University of PA with a BFA degree "in something called studio/applied arts," as his About the Artist sheet puts it. He majored in painting and minored in drawing, art history, and English.
From 1989 to 1995, he self-published zines such as Crunky Slugs, Damp Squibs, Tastes Like Teen Sputum, The Puppet Show, Sextime Laffs, and 11/12 Dave. They contained mostly cartoons and comics from himself and others. In 1995 he apparently published his last zine to date, a best-of called The Lost Decade Minus Four.
He's exhibited his work in Pittsburgh six times since 1993. His work most recently appeared in a group show, The Paper Show, that ran September 2005 at the now-defunct Arrow Gallery, in Pittsburgh. For this show, he'd used acrylic paint and mailing labels to alter some Polaroids he'd found at work; he told me he'd wanted to "bring out the photos' surreality and satirical nature."
May we assume, then, he doesn't paint puppy dogs and rainbows?
Sure, go ahead. No, wait, he has done a few paintings of his sister's dogs.
His paintings are usually in acrylic and tend to depict either candy-colored abstract designs or weird, perverse, cartoony beings in barren landscapes, or both. Of late he's produced mostly black-and-white drawings of the above subject matter, mostly in ink and lithography crayon. Nice gray tones in those drawings.
Who are his favorite authors?
He worships David Foster Wallace, the brainiac author of Infinite Jest, a million-page novel about tennis and alcoholics. DVM also likes Franz Kafka, Robert Coover (who?), and other authors not in Reader's Digest.
Who are his favorite musicians?
Jim O'Rourke, the Residents, the Jazz Butcher, Faust, Can, Jonathan Richman, the Velvet Underground, Chocolate Genius, Acid Mothers Temple--anyone obscure and/or weird and/or a little geeky, it seems. However, he also likes more well-known artists such as Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and...ABBA.
What's his favorite comic strip?
The Family Circus, a surprising choice for such a bohemian guy. Though he does like the alt-cartoonists Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Mark Beyer, and Ivan Brunetti.
What about his love life?
He's single and has no children.
So where has he placed personal ads/profiles on-line?
He has an entertaining Myspace site under the name tortoiseshells. He advertises on Salon Personals, also as tortoiseshells. And you can find him on Friendster.
Any final thoughts?
From what I've heard, many women have found him sexy. It's true.
Did we really have to know this?
I thought Dave would appreciate it.
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