Michael Davis:
Michael Davis’s most recent series of works blend together the realms of abstraction and landscape. For his larger works, bold colours flow across the canvas, making visible the figures of trees and the contours of river banks before slipping seamlessly back into abstraction.We are invited into an image of a landscape, yet not necessarily a specific one. Rather than reflecting place, Davis’s are more inclined to embody it. The subject matter therefore becomes secondary to the emotive affect and sensory experience of the work.
At a fundamental level, abstraction is an attempt not to represent virtual reality but to instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestures to encapsulate it. Considering this, it seems the perfect mechanism through which to explore the emotional associations of place. It is this tendency that inclines it towards capturing what some have called ‘spirit.’ Or, as Abstract Expressionist painter Roberto Matta termed ‘inscape.’ Matta was attempting to describe abstract paintings that explore the psychoanalytical landscape of the human mind. This is also an interesting perspective through which to view Davis’s works. When I Was Young She Was“The Mighty Nep” Now She Is “Yandhai” and Childhood River Memory in particular, are loosely inspired by the Nepean River which Davis explored as a child. Therefore, these images are wrapped up in memories of time past. They are poetic manifestations of place, tied to childhood nostalgia and how that morphs with time.
Davis described how the works emerge intuitively. He initially focuses entirely on the abstract, playing with colour before integrating figuration and composition. Working out of his studio in Sydney, this provides him with the freedom to create without constraint, allowing ideas to emerge naturally. Often he says that the conceptual parameters of the work come after the fact. However, the idea of nature, whether physically inhabiting it or mentally imagining it, has always been a form of respite and retreat.This perhaps informs its continual meandering presence throughout his practice.
Education
LMaster of Art Education UNSW – 1996
Exhibitions
2021
Floating then Falling, Van Rensberg Galleries, Milton
2017
New Paintings , Bromley & Co, Melbourne
Black Forest , Gallery One , Gold Coast
2016
New Paintings , Bromley & Co, Melbourne
2015
Commission Installation, The Star, Sydney
Tip Of The Mountain Top Of The Tree, Gallery One, Gold Coast
The Air Up There, Bromley & Co, Melbourne
2014
The Water Inside, Gallery One, Gold Coast
2013
You Leave a Landscape In Your Wake, Butcher’s Hook, Sydney
The Forty Nine Mysteries, Gallery One, Gold Coast
2012
The River and the Road, Gallery One, Gold Coast
2011
Big Gulps of Beautiful Air, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
New Paintings, Gallery One, Gold Coast 2010 New Paintings, Gallery One, Gold Coast
2009
New Paintings, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2008
Springtime Can Kill You, Kelby’s & Susan St Studio, Sydney
2007
New Paintings, Chapman Lane Studio, Sydney
2006
Slowly Down The Ganges, Art Sydney
2005
Saint Betty Of The Bathhouse, Art Matters, Sydney
2004
New Paintings, Art Matters, Sydney
New Paintings, Aqua On Bent, Sydney
2003
Hell Of A Summer, Starfish Gallery, Sydney
Hot Streak, Starfish Gallery, Sydney
2002
The Road To Pie Vecchia, Pie Vecchia Montalcino , Italy
2000
Jam, Starfish Gallery, Sydney
Group Exhibitions
2018
Group Show, Bromley & Co, Melbourne
2013
Gallery Opening, Butcher’s Hook, Sydney
2011
Think Big, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2010
About Flowers, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2009
Still, Charles Hewitt Gallery, Sydney
2007
Sulman Prize, AGNSW, Sydney