David Pohl (b. Pittsburgh, 1963) is an award winning illustrator and founder of House of Pingting, an independent creative studio working with magazine and book publishers, institutions, design firms, and ad agencies since 1991.

His illustrations have been commissioned by a wide range of clients including The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Phipps Conservatory, Med Express, Simon and Schuster, and The Humane Society of the United States.

David’s bright and bold, conceptual illustrations frequently examine themes of identity, social justice, history, memory, nostalgia, environmentalism, and the human condition. He is keenly sensitive to the subject matter at hand, incorporating juxtaposition and visual metaphor as a storytelling device to illuminate complex narratives.

He has received awards from The Society of Illustrators, The Society of Publication Designers, American Illustration and Communication Arts and was included in Picnic: Pop Folk Contemporary Illustration and Lurzer's Archive: 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide. In 2016 David created a series of banners for Market Square that accentuate diversity and the synergy of an iconic Pittsburgh gathering space. Exhibitions include The Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, The Art Directors Club of New York, The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and New York Public Library.

www.davidpohl.com

Clients include:

The Atlantic Monthly, Business Week, Harvard University, The Kikkoman Corporation, Newsweek, The New York Times, PBS, Time Magazine, Tower Records, Simon & Schuster, The United Jewish Federation and Yoga Journal.

Exhibitions include:

The Mattress Factory PGH, The Society of Illustrators Museum NYC, The Carnegie Museum of Art PGH, The Art Directors Club NYC, The Illustration Gallery NYC, House of Pingting PGH

Artist Educator in The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Residency Program.

All works on this site are subject to US copyright law.

Copyright © 2009 David Pohl

All Rights Reserved.

If you want to use an image, please write and ask for permission. I don't give away my work, but I am willing to negotiate a reasonable fee, especially for non-profits.

Unless noted

All other work on this site is

Copyright ©

2008 David Pohl

HOP | House of Pingting Archives

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The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

~Rabindranath Tagore

For some years before the term mashup became a popular term in the English lexicon, I have been interested in mining the fields of popular culture and combining disparate sources to create new works. To facilitate my ideas I explore a full range of media including: painting, found object sculpture, photography, video, site specific installation, performance, digital art and sound.

Since 1991 I have integrated elements from Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu and Sikh traditions and rituals into my practice as a contemporary artist. Equally, the work remains influenced by America's cultural heritage and the collective mythology of our times. Spontaneity is essential to my process, but I am not concerned with random combinations. There is a contextual relationship between any chosen medium and the narrative of a piece. Often one will dictate to the other. I am interested in exploring the depth of [a] shared cultural experience and one's unique memories and associations to it.

This East meets West approach creates a tension in the work of tradition versus novelty. The temporary, mutable and time-based elements in my work point towards the cyclical nature of life. Everything that is new will soon become old, while what's old, in time, becomes the next new thing. Swiftly moving technologies that we live and work with on a daily basis radically alter our notion of time.

I attempt to illustrate the idea that life is a spiritual process through which one can discover a deeper union with a timeless reality. Indeed, life is short, but (mechanical) time is the great illusion of history.

David Pohl

June 2009