Bio and Statement
Davis is an idea-driven artist who works in various series, shifting between collage, oil, airbrush, and acrylic painting. His work emphasizes the contemporary disconnect in our culture, coded language, and hidden information. The images fluctuate between degrees of abstraction and representation. The tone of his work reflects a critical view of American progress and the ever-totalizing effect of our new digital landscape. Much of his conceptual process involves the whiting-out, painting over, or encoding textual discourse. The word balloons are empty, and the written pages are neutralized or redacted. Other series feature QR codes and barcodes that cannot be scanned. What is covered remains veiled, just as much of the world’s content remains unknown. Davis is currently creating works that depict signs of the digital future and present, blending visionary and dystopian themes.
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, writing artist reviews and articles. John Davis lives and works in Houston, TX.
