The Tubman Museum is excited to announce that an important new work will be added to its permanent collection of African American art by a talented young Georgia native, David Gaither, an Atlanta-based artist known for his expansive paintings that combine bright colors with innovative shapes. Gaither will be at the Museum on Wednesday, July 20, at 10:30 a.m. to present his painting entitled, The Grand Mural, to the Museum.

David Gaither is a self-taught painter who earned a degree in Finance from Morehouse College and an MBA from Dartmouth College. He began making art at the age of three and was influenced artistically by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as contemporary artists, including KAWS.

Gaither has established a career as an exhibiting artist by participating in solo and group shows across the United States and abroad. A popular contemporary artist in high demand, Gaither’s upcoming exhibitions include Art Basel Miami in November 2016, Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2017, and a six-month show at the Albany Museum of Art beginning in June 2017. He also is preparing work for a major exhibition to be open for five months at Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in 2018.

Currently on display as part of a Tubman Museum Collections Gallery exhibition called David Gaither: Growth & Expansion, Gaither’s painting, The Grand Mural, is the largest in a series of large scale paintings on canvas that have garnered the artist much acclaim. In addition to its scale, the work is noteworthy because it features Spiritman, one of the artist’s favorite cosmic travelers, an image that was influenced by iconographies taken from the art of Native Americans of the Northwest coasts of the U.S. and Canada. Native American motifs that have a personal meaning were integrated into the painting by the artist, who wanted to create a living mural that allows the viewer to feel the constant progression and evolution of his or her life.

Everyone is invited to meet David Gaither on Wednesday, July 20, at 10:30 a.m., as he officially presents The Grand Mural to the Tubman Museum. The “David Gaither: Growth & Expansion” exhibition will be on display through July 23, 2016.