David Davenport / Artist Statement:
I have been probing and searching my subconscious through various mediums and techniques in an attempt to discover
content and beauty in my own voice. This time-honored search into the unknown has been expressed through drawing,
painting, collage and assemblage. Throgu this search I have developed a visual vocabulary, an inner structure, signs
to focus content and meaning in the art work.
The rural enviornment of my childhood lives in my memory today. Planted in one place for almost two decades, my coastal
farm community gave me a sense of boundless space. Here I learned a respect for the land in direct service to it with my
hands. The seasons were clearly defined and I absorbed the light and breath of their extremes, rhythm of beauty and
destruction. Here I developed an inner awareness of one place in time. The light penetrating the dark shadows of the old barns
remains a mysterious symbol of my past. These clumsey, hand-made structures rode like arks on their sea of land. In them
were stored the reapings of human discourse with nature.
The language of landscape is always present in my work which ranges from small works in watercolor and oil to miniature
scenes on a narrow channel (titled "Tracks") and large multi-view paintings (titled "Memory Maps") defined by a
grid-like structure. The landscape and symbolic places in the landscape always penetrate with a personal style and content.
Time, pictorial space, the landscape, and symbols of place are painted in a variety of moods and styles in an ongoing
process of rediscovering the past. My paintings are about memories and the many layers there are before you get to them.
Themes are investigated in diverse ways, involving a variety of media and techniques from traditional to abstraction. my painting palette is influenced by the various seasons, the muted dark hues speak of an approaching winter and the delicate, bright colors inform one of the coming of spring. I hope the observers of my paintings are reminded of similar places, moods, feelings and reflections.
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