G R A H A M D A V I S
"My existence has principally been about a constant quest for improvement" -- Graham Davis
See Graham's biography below photo gallery.
BIOGRAPHY After
leaving Maidstone he went on to Chelsea School of Art in London, where
the
British cultural renaissance of the 1960s was in full swing, and was to
impact
significantly on the mood and tone of Davis's early work. As
he finessed his style, he began to travel more, within and outside
Jamaica, on
a search for "perpetual inspiration". Old things: be they peasant
churches, rusting doors or crumbling bridges, hold a particular allure
for the
artist. As his work came to be recognized not particularly for an
identifiable
"locale" but rather for a "state of being", Davis began to
exhibit widely, in the Americas and Europe, to considerable public
acclaim. Always
one to loathe inertia, the period since 1990 has seen Graham Davis
experimenting with rich color, greater detail and less self-conscious
expressionism. These explorations have led to the development of an
enhanced
lyrical style by turn elegant, bold, and tremendously exciting.
EXHIBITIONS
This
simple philosophy has guided Graham Davis throughout his career. Born in
Kent
in 1944, he began his artistic journey under the tutelage of David
Hockney (an
influence that remains today) at Maidstone, where he learnt etching.
In
1970 he left the United Kingdom for Jamaica, where he was under contract
to
teach art for a year. The initial period was extended several times,
until
Davis eventually decided to settle on the Caribbean island, which he had
grown
to feel passionately about, and to paint full-time. Graham Davis is
represented
in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Jamaica and is
considered one of the most important artists in the Caribbean region.
It
was
during the 1980s that Davis began to develop what was to become his
signature style. Characterized by the artist as "a process somewhat akin
to developing film" and one critic as "a literal expression of the
sensitive unconscious being", this style, distinguished by its
painstaking
use of layers of evolving color becoming vaguely three-dimensional works
of
art, though not entirely unique, has been molded into a form which Davis
feels
to be completely his own.