Bio and Statement
John Davis is an idea-based artist who works in different series, moving between collage, oil, airbrush, and acrylic painting. His work points to the contemporary disconnect in our culture, codes in language and information that is hidden. The pictures shift between degrees of abstraction and representation. The mood of the work is informed by a dystopian take on American progress and the increasing, totalizing effect of our new digital landscape. Much of the artist’s conceptual process involves the whiting-out, painting over, or coding of textual discourse. The word balloons are empty, and the written page is neutralized or redacted. Other series depict QR/Bar codes that cannot be scanned. What is covered is veiled, just as much of the world’s content is unknown to us. Davis is currently painting signs of the digital future/present that are desolate and toward the fantastic.
John Davis was born in the Boston area in 1970. He received a BFA from UMass Amherst and a master's in painting at the University of New Orleans. Davis has exhibited his paintings in Denmark, Italy, Austria, New Orleans, and New York. His work was purchased by the director of the New Orleans Museum of Art and collected by the San Antonio Museum of Art. Davis has contributed as a visiting artist to the graduate program at Yale and was interviewed on NPR. Davis is a contributing author for Glasstire, reviewing artist shows. John Davis lives and works in Houston, TX.
