Tag Archive "christopher-davison"

Scaling up – Chris Davison makes a mural

Christopher Davison usually works small. His drawings and prints are dark, fairy tale dreamscapes that involve enormous numbers of details made with a wide variety of mostly tiny marks. But when the opportunity arose to create a wall-scale piece — a mural, in fact, on a gallery wall — Davison took a leap of faith and plunged right in. The resulting black and white mural in Gallery 817 at University of the Arts was a triumph of content, style, imagination and just plain hard work — a perfect scaled-up translation of the artist’s dreamy and threatening aesthetic into gargantuan proportions.

News: Krampus, Stanley Whitney, Masters of the Visual Universe, and more!

News A very Krampus Christmas We heard about Krampuslauf from Amber Dorko Stopper and also on WHYY. Who is Krampus? Why is he having a Christmas parade? Well, Krampus represents the opposite of Jolly Old St. Nick. He’s a Christmas devil that punishes naughty children during the holidays. It’s an alternative to the ‘everything is so sweet and lovely’ Christmas attitude; ‘a little salt to go with the sugar’ says Krampuslauf celebrator Janet Finegar. There will be Krampuslauf parade and festivities in Northern Liberties tomorrow, Sat. December 10, 4pm at Libery Lands Park, 913-961 north 3rd Street.

Review of two Christophers, or Kristofers, in New York

Here’s a link to a great review in Art Info of a New York show of work by Philadelphia artist Christopher Davison and his friend Krostofer Porter! The review mentions an online project, Call & Response–a drawing challenge/exchange between the two KChris-es. Both links worth a look!

Are movies the new boudoir art?

Back when royal courts were major art purchasers, painters like Francois Boucher, Rubens and many others got to exercise their sexy muscle on behalf of their royal employers, painting titillating works based on mythology. Many of these erotic paintings (some specifically for the boudoir) now sit in major art museums around the world, a reminder that the erotic in art once had great appeal for patrons who liked a little (or a lot of) sensory pleasure in their paintings and sculpture. As Jonathan Jones said recently about old master paintings in Britain’s National Gallery: “A great painting can be shockingly ... More » »

Go to blogpix, now!!!

Blogpix is closing Mar. 28! Yikes, that’s like Saturday.  It’s a show with lots of worthwhile paintings (see them on the website but see them in person, too)!!!   The show has one piece of sculpture — a huge wonderful “sock monkey” by Christopher Davison that people either love or hate.  (We love it!)  It’s so good in person, you need to see it.  

We pick blogpix!

We don’t want you to be the last to know. We’ve helped co-curate a show in Chelsea!! blogpix at Platform Project Space at Denise Bibro Fine Art coincides with the art fairs and was co-curated by two other terrific bloggers, Joanne Mattera and Hrag Vartanian. Are we hot or what! If you’re in New York you have two opportunities to schmooze with us at the show — Thursday, Mar. 5, 6-8 pm at the reception or Saturday, Mar. 7, 5 pm for the panel discussion. Christopher Davison, Polliwog, 2009, mixed media on paper. 15″ x 19.5″ This is one of ... More » »

Philly artists out and about

Christopher Davison, Girl with Yellow Legs, 2008, Micron, Pitt pen, gouache, acrylic, ink wash, colored pencil and collage on paper, 50 x 30 inches Philly artists are all over the place lately, and we’re having trouble getting out all the news of who is showing where. We missed the deadlines on getting a lot of the info up, but here’s a group that’s still fresh. Chris Davison in New York There’s still another week or two to catch the possessed Chris Davison in My Happy Demons. It runs to Aug. 10 at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York. Bobos in ... More » »

Weekly Update – Hunter Stabler and Christopher Davison go for Baroque

This week’s Weekly has my review of Christopher Davison’s Had at Jaskey/Tower and Hunter Stabler’s Thanks to Mom and Dad/The Chain of the Worlds at Pageant. Below is the copy with some pictures. More photos at flickr — Stabler and Davison. Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s heirs are alive and well and working hard in Philadelphia. Artists like Christopher Davison at Jaskey/Tower and Hunter Stabler at Pageant Soloveev—each in their own way and both with contemporary techniques and subject matter—express the same high emotional content, drama and dark beauty as the great 17th-century practitioner of twist, swirl and angst. Christopher Davison, Woman, child and ... More » »

Dreamy Erratic imagism

Christopher Davison Reclining Figure (Untitled) 30 x 40 in acrylic, gouache, micron, graphite, cut paper on Rives 2007 Erratic at 817 Gallery at UArts is a show that roams the territory of the id and dreams and asks you to wander with it. Get on over there because it’s great, and the show’s only up another little while. Animals, birds and humans seem to exchange body parts and roles and everyone’s a little grouchy — growling or staring ominously, all teeth and portent. Works by Christopher Davison, Nick Lenker and Caroline Santa, organized by Rebecca Saylor Sack, fill the tiny ... More » »

Hitch a ride to POST open studios

As luck and life would have it, we totally missed mentioning that the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours of nearly 300 artists around town, began last weekend and will continue into next weekend. When Roberta and I looked through the who’s who in the artists directory, it seemed to us this is POST’s best year yet. Fortunately, there’s still time to visit artists studios west of Broad Street this coming weekend–Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, Germantown, Manayunk, East Falls, Fairmount, Center City West, Rittenhouse Square, Graduate Hospital, and West Philly. Here’s a still from David Kessler’s video on the artists’ studios at ... More » »