Dave Bryant

Dave Bryant 1960-2007 - Midnight Cowboy

Nov 29, 2007

Dave Bryant, Light Artist

If light is the soul then soul is what is all around me. Pierre Joris

It is with immense sadness that we pass on news of Dave Bryant aka “DB’s” recent death after a truly heroic long term battle with cancer. For those of you who know the history of NVA, 90% of the lighting design you have seen as part of our events and projects since 1992 has been created by DB. He was absolutely pivotal to NVA’s move into developing vast environmental animations and landscape works and it is hard to believe that we will not have the chance to do it all again.

It is hard to do justice to a man who dealt with the side effects of HIV retroviral treatments for years, drove himself to and from chemotherapy sessions, lost his sight at points, dealt with a myriad of other physical complications and yet kept working and never once showed so much as an ounce of self pity in public. Far outliving predictions of how long he could keep going, his love for life and what he could do with his time sets an impossibly high benchmark for the rest of us to follow.

As a result of that cussed single-mindedness he demanded plenty from everyone who worked with him, although he was famous for scrawling chaotic kit lists and budgets on the back of fag packets even when being a partner at the highly successful Midnight Design lighting company in London for many years. You simply worked round these things because his design and the end results were often so breathtaking.

In the latter years with the unfailing emotional support of his partner Rob, production work with Jem and Alberto and the technical support of Mike, among a host of loving friends and family in Devon and London, he could still take on the challenges of lighting up entire mountainsides and enabling thousands of people to safely get up and down significant routes in all weather conditions. A decade ago when we first perceived of creating this type of complex and ambitious landscape work I think there were only a handful of designers in the world who would have had the guts, tenacity and the element of slight madness required to turn wild ideas into such incredible physical realities.

So if you were lucky enough to witness any of his work over the last fifteen years, then raise a glass to DB, (his tipple was cheap whisky and coke). He will be missed so much and will continue to inspire us to making the best work any of us can and simply to never give up on anything we set out to do.

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