“…The spookiest piece sets a black balloon against a black border. It’s also the most portraitlike: the mouth of the balloon gets lost in thee black-on-black. Our instinct is to see the solid black of a head against the deeper, paler black of a background but Scanavino serves up the opposite, with layered airiness within the head shape and solidity surrounding it. It’s subtler than the other works, which succeed in their smart formula and accomplished execution. The black piece introduces an unnerving psychology to the mix.”
from Flying Solo, Gallery Katz by Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe 2003

In 2003, David Scanavino was just out of grad school at Yale, was painting images of five-foot balloons and was not talking as to why.

In 2005, we began printing in St. Louis. Using laser cut steel plates we first printed dark, dark balloons, then school desks, and institutional clocks, and prints called Construction Clock (Skin). (David took some of these prints apart, reconfigured them – a heavy windowless security door (Untitled, Gym Door) and in another black-on-black image, a ghostly white clock (Moon) hangs above a jumbled pair of desks. In Untitled Green Desk, hints of things to come make their first appearance – institutional linoleum, torn paper, dappled color.

There is little time or space for art talk in the studio – we work. But in the end of a collaboration there is time. In hushed tones, one word here to fore unspoken resonated: Columbine.

Finally, we printed guillotines.