b. 1972, Indianapolis, IN, US
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US
Ian Davis constructs acrylic paintings that explore labor, ritual, power, and natural and artificial landscapes. Davis focuses on the formalism of the built environment—grids of prison cells, rows of empty seats around a proscenium, stacked windows on a building’s facade. Repetition and geometry may be soothing, but Davis captures how it orders and restrains our lives. The artist’s clean, graphic layers establish the settings of each work, while finer brushwork depicts groups of individuals, featureless aside from standardized work uniforms such as white lab coats or hard hats, engaged in tasks en masse. Figures seem to study phenomena outside the picture plane, to travel towards unknown destinations, and to gather resources not visible to the viewer. A disquieting atmosphere of disconnection pervades the works: the disconnection between viewers and painted subjects; between subjects and each other; and between subjects and the principle which organizes them within the composition.
Ian Davis (b. 1972, Indianapolis, IN, US; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US) holds a BFA from Arizona State University. He has had solo exhibition at Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Josh Lilley Gallery, London, UK; Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and Projects, New York, NY; and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; among many others. His work is represented in public collections such as the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA, US; and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, US, among others.