Born in Dublin in the early 70's. Cypher started training himself as a painter, and in 1984, he began taking private lessons in watercolour. Painting became a craft to be mastered and a privileged form of therapy. In 1989, David was excepted into Dun Laoghaire Art College on the basis of an outstanding portfolio.

With a one man show in 1996, 'Artifacts of a Crisis' in an anarchist bookshop The Garden Of Delights, led to a first serious review in The Sunday Times. The later championing of his work by a few opinion makers in the Dublin art world led to 'Twenty Years of Panic Art' a retrospective exhibition in the Oisin Gallery in 2000.

His paintings display the linear brushstrokes of van Gogh, the fragmented flesh tones of Freud, the synthetic background colours of Warhol, the motifs of hardcore pornography, the conceptual graffiti of Basquiat and the abstract biomorphic interjections of Schnabel.