David Ramsey

David Ramsey is a board certified veterinary ophthalmologist and a self-taught artist. Although he never pursued formal art training, he began woodworking and woodcarving at a young age. For many years while he completed his formal veterinary medical education and with limited free time, he continued to study art on his own, focusing on wood as his preferred medium. Making wood sculpture and wood turning became his primary creative outlets.

David began creating burl wood horse sculptures in 2009, intuitively developing his distinctive and vivid style during a relatively short period of time. His sculptures are unique, one-of-a-kind, hand-carved horses. His horse sculptures are made from burls that have been harvested from both domestic and exotic hard wood species. Every burl is distinctive in size and shape, and dictates the specific equine form in sculpture. David's inspiration is derived from his work as a veterinarian and horse owner, relying on the natural burl shape, form, and inherent properties (tone, texture, wood inclusions and voids) within the confines of the burl wood to reveal the horse sculpture hidden within each burl. He maintains the natural or live edge of the burl wood in his sculptures which served as the evolutionary basis of his distinctive artistic style. His vision, imagination, intricate attention to detail, and knowledge of the horse are brought to life as he uses self-taught carving techniques on rare pieces of burled wood.

David's artistic objective is to create life and motion in each sculpture by depicting the essence of the horse subject with dramatic expression of emotion and eloquence. His ability to accurately capture the unique qualities of each horse in burl sculpture is the hallmark of his work and endears his sculptures to those who collect them. Many of his horse sculptures can be found in numerous private collections across the United States and Canada. David maintains a busy private referral veterinary ophthalmology practice in Michigan. He and his wife Cindy, who is also a veterinarian, have two children and have owned horses for many years. Please visit www.burlhorse.com to view more of David's sculptures.

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