davedaviessketchbook

 Well before I begin, let me say sorry for the awkward formatting on these blogs. E-Blog is not very forgiving in the placement of photos and text. After conversing with my graduate school professor recently I decided to create a blog that chronicles the passage of my work through the years. Too often people see your work and think it was always that way. It is important for me to revisit these images as well for my own personal growth and sense of context.
  I began my work at Hunter college in the late nineties doing large scale paintings that seemed more sculpture than painting. These paintings were a continuation of work I was doing in my   undergraduate program at the University of New Mexico. I apologize again for the awkward placement of this text, E-blog will not allow me to adjust. Anyways, by 2000 my work had progressed to a more illustrative style. I found myself doing a large number of charcoal drawings, when my guiding mentor and professor juan Sanchez saw these works, he said "why are you not doing this work, rather than these large scale paintings. The paintings were becoming obscelete and unable to tell the narrative I sole desired to tell in my work. By the end of my graduate year, i turned these charcoal drawings into a short film. Below, are clips from two films i made during my graduate studies at Hunter College- one film was a combined effort with fellow grad student and artist William Powhida. Once I left hunter college I had no way to take these 300lb painted monstrosities with me, so i threw them away. This photo of me in front of those paintings is one of the few remaining evidence that exists of those paintings.
  My exit from hunter college was burdened with financial troubles as well. Technology was not as cheap as it is now. My graduate thesis exhibition was supposed to run for a month, mine ran for three days.  the cost to rent an LCD projector at the time was $500.00- you can own one for that kind of cash now, but back then it wasn't the case. As a result i dismantled my show after only three days. My exit from the New York art world went out with a whimper. As the years went by I began to fully embrace my illustrative style. I continue to focus my obsession with violence and horror, and let it take form within my work. I began doing work on commission for comic books, and other commercial art avenues. I still have a desire to create a gallery show exhibiting my work in the near future, and I hope that dream will arrive sooner than later. I hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane and i hope it provided more insight into my work, it certainly did for me. Again, i appreciate any feedback, if not on this site, then on facebook.