David was born in Northampton, England in 1954. He completed a year's foundation course in Art and Design there, but dropped out of a diploma course at Liverpool to travel around Europe and the Far East.

After completing a degree in comparative culture in Japan he began to paint and draw again, returning to England in 1985 as a freelance illustrator and visualiser while painting in his spare time. He was short-listed for the BP Portrait Award in 1989 (then sponsored by the John Player group) and gradually portrait commissions took the place of illustration work.

Alongside his work as a portrait painter, he began exploring his interest in the human figure, and has had solo exhibitions of his work in Beaux Arts Bath, Messum's in London, and most recently at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath in 2007. David currently divides his time between portrait commissions and the development of new, more personal work.