For 45-year-old Fort Wayne native David Krouse –
the painter, sculptor, set designer, gallery
owner, teacher, father, husband, house painter
and all-around mensch – life is good.
Even if things weren’t exactly all right, you’d
never know it in talking with him. A decidedly
uptempo, the-glass-is-half-full-type personality,
art is a verb to Krouse, and everything he does
in his life reflects art. In other words, he does
everything as well as he can.
He’s not going to paint you a picture of some
false reality or direct you down some primrose
lane. He speaks, thinks and creates truth as he
sees it, scarce traits in these times, but ones
which have endeared him to colleagues, friends
and family.
Oh yeah, this affable artist also accommodates a
sense of humor that abides the cryptic and tests
the limits of political correctness. One never
leaves his presence without having enjoyed a
full-bellowed laugh.
Quick to realize the many ironies of life,
Krouse seizes every chance to portray hypocrisy
in all its forms in a variety of media.
Krouse the artist didn’t invent his
expressionist style in a vacuum, he’ll gladly
explain, as he did recently in a Fort Wayne
Museum of Art presentation. It’s origins are
traceable to Fort Wayne Art Institute professors
Russell Oettel, Noel Duschenchon and George
McCullough and his own admiration of the German
Expressionists Max Beckmann, Ernst Kirchner and
Emil Nolde.
“I think these artists were people who lived in
their times to the fullest extent,” said Krouse.
“They recognized the nature of human folly. Their
collective works are intense, some might say
extreme and allegorical. Later they toned down
some of the drama, but most definitely they have
been major influences in both style and subject
matter.
“Some people see Cubist-African elements in my
sculpture and they’re correct,” added Krouse.
“But I’ve certainly never limited myself to the
role of copyist. The times, new techniques and
various advantages won’t allow for that type of
repetition.”
After earning his BFA from IPFW after the state
had absorbed the older Art School, he applied for
graduate school. Though he was accepted at
several schools, only Bowling Green offered him a
teaching position as well as admission to the
program. By then he was married to Mary Rondot
and father of two daughters. For two years Krouse
commuted the 90 miles to and from the Ohio campus
while Mary worked as a nurse. Together they
raised the children while Krouse earned his MFA
in 1994.
Krouse began showing his work locally and
regionally at a number of venues, including IPFW,
Artlink, the Allen Co. Public Library, Fort Wayne
Museum of Art, Chamber of Commerce, Henry’s, the
universities of Evansville and Saint Francis, and
he designed stage settings for the Fort Wayne
Dance Collective. Many of his works are held in
private collections.
Almost seven years ago Krouse, with the support
and encouragement of Mary, plunged into the arena
of gallery ownership and purchased a two-story
brick building that formerly housed a metal
fabrication shop on South Calhoun Street near the
Oyster Bar. After nearly a year of restoration
and reconstruction, he opened the 1911 Gallery
fronting a spacious studio where he could
work.
The space quickly earned a reputation as an edgy
place to be shown and seen, and Krouse’s efforts
attracted a considerable following. Among the
shows he either produced or help promote were a
solo exhibition of sculptor Dale Enochs, Dongos
Curb Feelers, the glass works of Richard
Fizer and several group shows, including the IPFW
senior show, works by the E4 collective and group
gatherings for Michael Poorman, Suzanne Galazka,
Don Kruse and Bill Snyder. The 1911 was a
perennial on the Trolley Art Event.
All during this period Krouse continued to
create his own pieces while earning his living
working as an artist-in-residence at elementary,
middle and high schools throughout the area and
occasionally returning to a trade he learned as a
youth, house painting, inside and out.
A survey of Krouse’s work – like the grouping he
used for his recent FWMOA presentation – can be
viewed as perplexing, provocative and
enlightening. Nonetheless, certain themes –
magic, ritual and manipulation – are nearly
always in focus. Other favorite notions, like
power, gamesmanship, pride, love gone stale,
motherly protection and self-discovery, are often
interwoven into his canvases canvas.
Sometimes, like in his large canvas, Robert
Bly Weekend, he offers us a sarcastic take on
the self-absorbed poet’s man movement of the
1980s, with a gathering of guys, drums and fire
all gone amuck with one fellow running hard stage
right to escape the event. To tell another
reoccurring subject, that being his childhood
recollections of Catholic church ritual and
mystery, Krouse selects a rabbit-out-of-the-hat
magician and a levitation trick. In both cases
the artist places his characters under
cabaret-type theatrical lighting and assigns them
cheesy expressions. In other pieces Krouse uses
shell-game motifs or clusters of people he refers
to as skeptics.
In his black-and-white monoprints Krouse draws
upon his life-long love affair with photography.
They emote raw strength and power in their
simplicity and could have come directly out of
the era associated with his friends Beckmann,
Kirchner and Nolde. Very precious these pieces,
especially some of the smaller ones.
In his latest paintings Krouse has reached for a
more bold and colorful palette to create homages
to Van Gogh or later Beckmann pieces. His
Garden Girl captures the colors of a
sunlit garden and more than a hint of his wife
Mary whose gardening instincts have become
legendary in the couples South Side
neighborhood.
As much as Krouse enjoys talking about and with
other artists, he also likes his music, which can
go from the subtle and driven sounds of Miles
Davis and John Coltrane to the vibrant rhythm and
blues of Jimmy Hendrix and Tom Waits. In terms of
film, Krouse likes his classic Euro-cinema heroes
Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Wim
Wenders.
Today Krouse himself is poised like one of his
subjects to exit at least partially from the art
business scene.
“I’ve put the gallery up for sale,” explained
Krouse. “I have and still enjoy most every minute
of it, but it does take so much time and effort
to run things properly, and that subtracts from
my own time in the studio, something I miss more
and more. Certainly the economic environment
we’re experiencing has affected the business of
art collecting in recent years, but that’s not
the sole factor that has influenced my decision.
I need my own kind of downsizing.”
That’s downsize, not disappear.
The 1911 Gallery remains open and Krouse can be
reached at 260-745-8468 to schedule an
appointment.