David Parekh is a 55 year old Indian American retired internal medicine physician and artist. David first came to Chicago from India on the day before Halloween in 1976. He fell in love with America immediately because everywhere he went, people were giving him Halloween candy! David went to elementary school at Henry D. Lloyd School, a Chicago Public School on the north side of Chicago. He learned English quickly and he did well in his studies. He went to high school at Lane Technical High School in Chicago. He did well in high school and he was subsequently admitted to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in biology. He did well at UIC and he was then admitted to the University of Illinois - College of Medicine at Chicago (class of 1995). He did well in medical school and he earned an M.D. degree at the age of 25. On Match Day 1995, he matched to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge IL to do an internship and residency in internal medicine. He completed residency training in 1998. He became board certified in internal medicine in 1999. His first job as a practicing internal medicine attending physician was with a private medical practice in Naperville IL.
However, unfortunately for him, in only his first year in private practice in Naperville, bad luck struck David. David came down with three incurable illnesses at approximately the same time. These illnesses interfered with David's ability to sleep and with his memory and with his thinking and decision making ability and they impaired his ability to work as a doctor. This unfortunate new reality led David to major depression. He started self medicating with alcohol and he quickly became an alcoholic. He got arrested and he was sent to Cook County Jail. His license to practice medicine got revoked. All of his family members, and all of his friends, and all of his colleagues, all turned their backs on him. He then lost his townhouse in Naperville, his car, and his girlfriend, and in only approximately 5 years time, David went from being a rich doctor in the suburbs to a homeless person!
David began to paint in November of 2002 as self prescribed art therapy for his his depression. One day in November of 2002, totally and completely out of the blue, without any formal art training whatsoever, David entered into an art supplies store. Once there he purchased basic fine art supplies. The very first painting that came out of his madness he called "The Creation of Color". His logic was that if the very first thing in the universe that God created was light, then the very next thing that he must have created is color. The next two paintings that came out he called "The First Day" and "The Second Day", (both circa 2002). Both of these two paintings were lost when David became homeless. David has painted many other paintings, most of which are on display on this online fine art gallery. Several other of his paintings he simply gave away as gifts, three were sold to fine art lovers, and three of David's paintings were stolen by art thieves.
David's art is a combination of abstract, spiritual, and landscape. David likes using impasto technique, in which lots of paint is used to create depth and texture in the painting.