Photos by Michael Robinson
From left, "Falmouth Doorway" and "Pomegranate" by Graham Davis.

Michael Robinson, Gleaner Writer

Graham Davis admittedly talks very little about his work. He prefers, instead, to let the work speak for itself. And it does.

'Recent Works', the recently concluded exhibition at the Mutual Gallery, gives us the UK-born painter in his proverbial element, recreating images from his semi-annual globetrots. Like the impressionists before him, he uses photographs as a starting point for a journey from the mundane to the magnificent.

Davis finds beauty in everyday objects and manages, with what appears to be very little effort, to convey it to viewers with powerful effect. His 'Basket and Pot' is a view of common household items that most folks might have passed without noticing.

Mesmerised

Through the eyes and the brush of Davis, however, the viewing angle intrigues as the light spills through the wicker and across the pot and on to the tiled floor. We catch ourselves staring, mesmerised.

Impressionists were fascinated by the invention of the photograph. It allowed them to stop time and capture the action of light as it interacted with the objects around them. Photos made the world a whole different place for them. They were able to play with their world and create something new.

Davis' acrylic-on-board paintings are far more representational than the oils of the impressionists. However, like the impressionists, Graham infuses his pieces with an emotive quality that is as compelling as it is undeniable.

'Tuscan Monastery II' makes us feel like we can smell the Tuscan air and, if we just bend the corner and head for that doorway, we could even step out into the countryside.

He was born in the United Kingdom, but it was in Jamaica that Graham Davis, the artist, manifested his childhood dream to create. For the most part, his years are spent half here and half in Spain. That questing nomadic spirit appears in the artist's creative process. His method of painting, whitewashing, rubbing and then painting again creates a finish that has come to characterise his paintings. His drawing and redrawing evince a mind dedicated to process.

Trial and error

"I'm not making an important statement," writes the bespectacled Davis, "but enjoying the process of trial and error ... letting things happen once I've started on a painting." Some might argue that's an important statement in and of itself.

The exhibition contains no mixed-media or other ostensible experimentation. Call it old-fashioned, but if his work ethic has remained the same, then his art is as poignant today as it was when he started exhibiting four decades ago.

Art is a journey, says the work of Graham Davis, into self, into medium, into process. Just as there have been Zen Buddhists who have achieved mastery through the contemplation of a single object, Davis is on a journey.