Richard Davis

Home: LaHave, Nova Scotia
Title: Basement Self Portrait
Media: Oil emulsion on honey-comb / émulsion à l’huile sur panneau alvéolé
Dimensions: 66 x 76 cm
Website: www.rtdavis.com

The minimal but dramatic light, the muted colors, and the aged surfaces found in the basement of my one hundred plus year old home, have attracted and inspired me through a number of paintings.  This, the last of the series, is a portrait of myself looking at my reflection, barely seen, in a stack of old mirrors and panes of glass. Beauty in the mundane is a theme of many of my works.  I use the clarity of a well structured painting to give a felling of importance, rightness, to the often mundane objects I paint.  Through precision of detail and, more importantly, relationship of values, I create a tangible, almost tactile look to the objects in my work.  At their best, my works give the viewer a very real sense of contemplating reality itself. In my work my desire is to capture the essence of things caught in a quiet moment.  When time slows objects speak to me.  I am more interested in what things tell me than in the stories I might tell.  I see myself as a translator, more than a story teller.

2013 Winner

Born, Middletown, New York, 1947.

EDUCATION:
1965-1966 Studied, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

AWARDS:
2011 Inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (R.C.A.)
2011 KIngston Prize, 2011 People’s Choice Award (Gananoque)

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2011 Odon Wagner Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.
1996 Gerold Wunderlich & Co., New York, NY.
1990 Gerold Wunderlich & Co., New York, NY.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2011 Kingston Prize Exhibition, Gananoque ON, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ON, Drummondville QC.
2007 Group show “The Figure: from Cubism to Post Modern,” Gerold Peters Gallery, New York, New York.
2000 Group show, “Drawings by 20th Century and Contemporary Masters”, Forum Gallery, New York, New York.

COLLECTIONS:
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
The Seavest Collection, New York, New York