David Giles Lochtie was born in 1961 in the town of Eureka on California's redwood coast.  Formative events in his youth were trips to his father's native England, working as a laborer on a ranch, and a near-fatal head-on collision with a logging truck while riding his bicycle.

His was a family of backpackers and beachhikers; it was during adventures in local rainforests and the Sierra Nevada mountains that his love of nature developed.  He kept the natural forms and organic lines he saw.  Today they appear in his work as swirls and wobbly ovals, reminiscent of boulders, puddles, and driftwood grain.

The local culture had an impact, too.  Humboldt County, with its collection of loggers, fishermen, farmers, and hippies, was a haven for folk art, featuring giant driftwood sculptures along the highway, funky tree houses, and a kinetic sculpture race, all of which Lochtie witnessed with a kind of euphoric recognition.

Perhaps most important of all was the influence of music on his life.  Some of his earliest memories are of being transported by music, so much so that songs he heard could make him feel as though he was flying.  He recalls flowing progressions of abstract images in his mind as music played, and the longing to make pictures of them.  This passionate response to music would become a driving force behind his work, and fuel the development of a unique style of painting.  He seeks to capture the rhythms and tones of music in line and color, and to translate auditory joy into painting.

Lochtie received his art degree from Willamette University, where he studied with landscape painter Carl Hall, and did his masters work at Lewis and Clark College.  He married his high school sweetheart.  They have three children, and live in Portland, Oregon.

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