King David

David Rampersad Jr, also known as King David, is an abstract artist reflecting on heritage, ritual, and remembrance through the lens of abstraction. His work honors the complexities of personal and collective identity shaped by his Caribbean upbringing. King David's most recent body of work, Trinidad & Tobago, was rooted in his first trip to his father’s homeland. The works examine diasporic memory, Hindu spiritual practices, and the symbolic weight of nature, light, and familial bonds. Utilizing window screens as both metaphor and tool, David creates tactile surfaces where paint, gesture, and spirit intersect. Each piece functions as both ritual and visual offering, shaped by the resonance of his cultural and painterly explorations.

King David (b. 1995) was born in Flatbush to immigrant parents from the Caribbean, and is based in Brooklyn, NY.  His unique upbringing was heavily influenced by his completion of a program called Prep for Prep. This nonprofit afforded him scholarship opportunities to attend The Dalton School and Gettysburg College, where he graduated as a Studio Art major with honors in 2017. This scholarly achievement would also lead David to the doors of the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing in Aix-en-Provence, where he studied for a semester abroad during his undergraduate years. On a path paved contrastingly with grueling vicissitudes and hard-earned opportunities to succeed, David proudly credits his exceptional educators, especially those in the Arts, for nurturing his academic prowess as acutely as his artistic passions. After the experience of losing his father to suicide in 2016, David found his voice and expressive style in abstract painting and has been committed to working in this fashion ever since, supplementing his focus on abstraction with similarly conceived drawings, watercolors, sculptures, and photographs. He has been working out of his studio in Brooklyn since 2018.

King David has exhibited at Welancora Gallery, Sean Scully's 447 SPACE, Bishop Gallery, Parasol Projects, Peace Gallery, 17 Frost Gallery, The Other Art Fair, and Spectrum Miami. His work has been featured in White Hot Magazine and The Brooklyn Rail.

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