{"id":1062,"date":"2023-09-24T23:01:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T23:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2023-09-24T23:01:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T23:01:54","slug":"ryan-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/ryan-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Art Is Unity Interviews Ryan Davis
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Shine Your Light For The World To…(UMI Say)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oil paint, paint is my first love. For the most part, other mediums I work with are a means to an end, whether to create art as an object, explore a theme or work through ideas quickly. With working with oil paint, my love of painting always comes first.<\/p>\n

I am very impressed by your portrait work.\u00a0 It is at once traditional and modern.\u00a0 Why were you drawn to portraiture?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Portraiture had always seemed like the pinnacle of oil painting. Even before I started to practice painting, I was always drawing characters and building narratives around the character. I\u2019m drawn to all of the signifiers a portrait can convey in nuanced ways. I have to be considerate of so much from contemporary culture, to the historical practices of figure painting.<\/p>\n

Did you feel like it was a choice to make traditional portraiture or is that simply what you were naturally drawn to?\u00a0 In other words, are you intentionally carrying on a tradition?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a choice. Again portraiture I saw as the pinnacle of oil painting. Once upon a time, I was mindful of how portrait artists like Kehinde Wiley and Kerry James Marshall were referencing Western historical works of art. They are fracturing traditional narratives and building space for Black people to exist. With that being said, I\u2019ve divested from this manner of thinking. Now my approach is creating fictional spaces from traditions within non-Western or pre-colonized spiritual practices. My work now is a journey in unlearning my Western norms.<\/p>\n

Can you describe the people you choose.\u00a0 You paint primarily people of color.\u00a0 Are these people you know?\u00a0 How do you find your models?\u00a0 Is there any social or political intent?<\/em><\/p>\n

The people I chose to paint I selected from a pool of people I had worked with as part of the larger project. Most of my portrait work was completed in Athens, Ohio as a graduate student, making it a lot easier to simply ask someone to participate. I would gather 3-4 people and conduct a group interview asking them questions that allowed them to reveal who they are. From that group I\u2019d select one or two people for a photoshoot to complete a painting.<\/p>\n

I remember once you were talking to me and telling me that you made some portraits of a very specific size on purpose?<\/em><\/p>\n

I wanted my portraits and figure paintings to create shifting perspectives for the audience so I made them very large. I wondered what it would feel like if the figures in the painting were the viewers and the audience became the ones being looked at? I thought it might relinquish a desire to control a narrative and allow the paintings to operate on its own terms.<\/p>\n

There is a range of backgrounds in your work.\u00a0 Some are all black and some have painted backgrounds.\u00a0 Is there a reason for this?<\/em><\/p>\n

The black backgrounds are a reference to Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings. I actually replicated his same methodology in how he creates the matte black texture with oil paint. I am using the language of his works and abstract expressionism and juxtaposing it with Black figures. I was using that void space to speak to the fact that there are no void spaces. But content is more when I was operating through a Western lens, which I\u2019m not concerned about anymore. In my recent collage work which is becoming my foundation or sketch, I\u2019m creating from within the space of non-colonized thinking.<\/p>\n

You are an oil painter, also a print maker, collage artist, muralist and more. I really like your mixed media collage work.\u00a0 In many ways it seems like a big departure from your portrait work.\u00a0 The colors and subject matter are very different along with the compositions.\u00a0 How do you choose your collage elements?\u00a0 Is there an underlying narrative?<\/em><\/p>\n

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My collages have a loose narrative and are building towards creating a world unto itself. The general narrative is that the primary character has lived as the only surviving human in a post-apocalyptic world since they were a child. Nature has been at least partially in stone since the apocalypse and they must restore land without knowing what its natural state actually is. The narrative and world itself is a space for me to share my journey into learning about African and Indigenous agricultural practices. I choose my elements for my collages based on rules I\u2019ve created that will uphold the existence of this fictional world. I have them well sorted out to help me be efficient in creating collages.<\/p>\n

Can you talk about the titles in your work? <\/em><\/p>\n

The titles of my works tend to be either song references or long descriptions of the work. I\u2019m inspired heavily by music, specifically hip-hop. I\u2019m always looking for ways to tie in music. I use song lyrics and titles as a way to build a continuation of music. For the long descriptive titles, that is a bit of me being humorous with myself and trying to not overthink. I think there is a natural desire for artists to want to make titles that are deep and allegorical. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I wish for my work to have that resonance. But I think why titles from artworks in history are deep is that it has had decades and centuries to take on a multifaceted existence. So I just create long narratives to not be so serious and let time give it meaning beyond me.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know you made music until recently.\u00a0 Can you explain the influence on music in your life and work as an artist.\u00a0 Can you talk about your music?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d never call myself a musician but I do enjoy making and love researching hip-hop music. I\u2019ve made beats and written, recorded, and released projects. Some of it you can find if you dig around. I would tell you if I conveniently knew where it was. I sometimes make music or sounds that supplement my studio practice. For me, making music is playing around and I like keeping it that way. It\u2019s less of an informed practice and more just me retreating from the heavier thinking I\u2019m engaged with in my studio. I still spend a lot of time reading and learning about hip-hop in history. It helps identify threads between historically African practices and contemporary Black cultures in a multi-faceted way.<\/p>\n

How did you end up making murals?\u00a0 Do you feel like it is art or simply a job?\u00a0 Is it gratifying to make truly public art work?<\/em><\/p>\n

I had made a few group murals through a few different programs as a youth and young adult. I didn\u2019t actually anticipate becoming a muralist, but I had gotten a job leading youth and young adults in making murals and have stuck with it since. From there I\u2019ve gotten commissions from people seeing me on the streets painting murals. The nice thing about that is I don\u2019t have to market myself much. Being on the streets painting, becomes the marketing. Just as well I realized, I may have an easier appeal getting organizations to commission me for a mural than selling more traditional sized painting. The goal when making a mural is to be of service to the community or client. I do enjoy when I know I\u2019ve met the desires of whomever I am making the mural for but that also means I treat it more like a job, than for my studio practice.<\/p>\n

Who are your artistic idols?\u00a0 What inspires you.<\/em><\/p>\n

As I grow older what inspires me and my creative practice is rediscovering historical narratives of my folks. I\u2019m inspired by Soul Fire Farm, Karen Washington, N.K. Jemisin, Octavia Butler, Talib Kweli or any artist, book, grassroots organization, musician who works to reconnect the threads from Black ancient histories to our present.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I know you teach as well.\u00a0 Do you feel like teaching is part of your art practice?<\/em><\/p>\n

More so the other way around. I try to direct my teaching structures to what I know. By structure I mean how I teach the topic. I try to scaffold in ways that allow for exploration and discovery within the images, which is somewhat how I build my collages. Not every lesson is geared towards that mode of working, but that\u2019s when I\u2019m most engaged with teaching.<\/p>\n

Can you talk about your love of plants and how it relates to your artistic practice?<\/em><\/p>\n

I worked in the arts education department at a botanical garden called Wave Hill for about 3 years. I learned a lot from my peers and really started to realize how much of what I know has such a Western world bias. The world is so old and so much of what we treat as new and sustainable in building a healthy world are old practices the ancestors discovered a long time ago. I found it beautiful to journey into that history and by extension my cultural history. That process is what has developed my work into what it is today.<\/p>\n

What is your long term vision for yourself.\u00a0 Last time I saw you, you were talking about buying land and decolonizing it.\u00a0 Can you explain what that means for you?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m still learning what that looks like for me.<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Ryan Davis for this interview; Ryan Davis\u2019s work can be viewed in the ArtIsUnity Gallery<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art Is Unity Interviews Ryan Davis   Oil paint, paint is my first love. For the most part, other mediums I work with are a means to an end, whether to create art as an object, explore a theme or work through ideas quickly. With working with oil paint, my love of painting always comes …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1074,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artisunity.net\/talkart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}