The micro-expressions in each painting awakens an oasis of emotions. It doesn't take an art expert to feel the overwhelming passion of the artist who created it. Each painting has a reason, a story, there is someone who laughs, dreams, cries, suffers and is happy like any human being, but he manages to unfold himself and capture the best of himself on canvas. Such is the case of David Berkowitz Chicago based naïve artist, who next month is hosting an online exhibition at the Chicago gallery.

Starting this May, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago, opens its online shows. Among the first is the “In Full Speed” exhibition coming from David Berkowitz’s Chicago atelier, a luxury for any lover of contemporary art and history. Gaining inspiration from a range of sources including serene landscapes, vibrant streets and the joy of his childhood memories, his latest exhibition includes works marked by technical expertise and an emotional backbone.

This retrospective exhibition covers the more than two decades of the artist's career, presenting his essential stages and transformations: from the sociopolitical and upheaval works he conceived between in the early 90s, to the coded paintings of his last creative period.

The exhibition titled “In Full Speed” experiments with shapes to loosen the gaze, move and, at the same time, summon the viewer to take a position. In his drawings, David explores various materials, pigments and inks. He introduced conceptual strategies into his work by linking drawing and writing, and he rehearsed a thought in images through collage. The Chicago artist David Berkowitz considered rhythm as a structural element of art, a rhythm that arose from the use of certain materials, shapes, lines and colors.

“In Full Speed” is a collective and polyphonic curatorial project that proposes a non-linear journey through the work of David Berkowitz. Trying to dissolve the binary distinction between an abstract phase, which has led to aestheticized and distant readings of David's work, this exhibition aims to interpret his ways of acting, intervening and creating from friction.

David Berkowitz didn’t know he was an artist until he was in his late twenties, but I’d like to digress a bit and tell you how he got to where he is now.

Berkowitz was born on January 30, 1943 in Aurora, Chicago. He grew up in a loving and nurturing household. Most of his childhood was pretty normal for that time. He graduated from high school in 1961 and continued his education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1969 David suffered a serious spine injury during a football match, and had the opportunity to discover his artistic passion. Once he recovered from the injury, he immediately went to the local art store and bought what he needed to draw. Until then he had never really felt a passion for creating, though he always loved art, design, and architecture. When he picked up the brush and began painting, he knew something had changed. Not only was he enjoying it, but he found his skills exceeded his expectations. David Berkowitz drew constantly for the next 7 months using images he had in his head. Then his love for drawing changed forever.

For the next two years he carried his camera everywhere and amassed a portfolio of faces he couldn’t resist drawing. Until this day, David continues to turn to the streets to find many of his subjects. As you can see, his true passion is giving a face and a name to those whom most people would just pass by.

David's naive narrative paintings are mostly made using oil and acrylics, as its fast drying qualities give him the freedom to mix other mediums more easily. Anything he experiences or sees, either close or far away, may turn into his next inspiration. David Berkowitz creates in a naive figurative style, through color or black and white, in a constant state of evolution. Through each layer, he scratches, rubs and uses any means to get the final desired result.