David Aylsworth (born 1966, Tiffin, OH) is an abstract painter who, throughout his career, has embraced ambiguity and improvisation, and while he has spent years cultivating his process, refinement has never been the goal. Imperfection is embedded in Aylsworth’s method: edges are not smooth, colors are not pure, and his surfaces are pocked with thinly concealed revisions. His work is abstract but not nonobjective: abstract shapes bat at each or linger near the canvas edge like actors, and canted horizon lines, overlapping forms, and wide special expanses admit an ambiguous depth into his compositions.

David Aylsworth earned a BFA from Kent State University in 1989 and was an artist resident at the Core Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1989-1991. Aylsworth’s paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Dallas Museum of Art; the El Paso Museum of Art; and the Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi. His recent solo exhibitions include September Song, Inman Gallery (2019); Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea, Inman Gallery (2016); David Aylsworth, Morgan Lehman Gallery, NY (2014); Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas (2013); The Reverses Wiped Away, Inman Gallery (2012); and Fugue for Tinhorns Sound Like Frère Jacques, Ellen Noël Art Museum of the Permian Basin, Odessa (2008). In 2011 his paintings were included in the group exhibition Working in the Abstract: Rethinking the Literal, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 2017 Aylsworth was the subject of a ten-year survey exhibition, David Aylsworth: Either/And, which was organized by the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX, and traveled to the Galveston Arts Center. Aylsworth lives and works in Houston, TX.