David Finn worked as a mason, making walls and chimneys before attending Cornell University to study biology and art with Peter Kahn. In 1982 he received his MFA at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where he studied with Lowery Burgess. He moved to New York that year and began exhibiting figures made of street refuse on the streets and in gallery installations, where he was part of the 'East Village' scene of the 1980's that included David Wojnarowicz and Keith Haring.

Finn has exhibited his sculpture in over 15 solo exhibitions in Hong Kong, London, New York, and Milan; his New York figures were shown in Aperto in the 1984 Venice Biennale and Anniottanta in Ravenna in 1985. He is the recipient of fellowship awards from the New York Foundation for The Arts, North Carolina Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His first public projects were done with the Public Art Fund in NYC in the 1980's, and since 2004 he has received a number of public commissions in North Carolina where he lives, including the Diggs Tower (Winston-Salem) and the Toddler Climbing Wall (Chapel Hill). Finn teaches sculpture and drawing at Wake Forest University in North Carolina where he is Professor and Rubin Faculty Fellow in the Arts.