Jennifer Davis is a Minneapolis-based artist known for her colorful, imaginative paintings of surreal and whimsical characters. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues such as The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis, MN); The DeVos Art Museum (Marquette, MI); Foster Museum (Eau Claire, WI); Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (Santa Cruz, CA); The Lesher Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA); ArtSpace (Raleigh, NC); Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (Boone, NC), as well as several galleries in major cities across the United States, Canada and Europe. Davis is a recipient of the 2013 Next Step Fund Grant from the Minnesota Regional Arts Council/McKnight Foundation. She holds a BFA from the University of Minnesota.
"My usual mode of working is very spontaneous and intuitive. The narrative quality of each painting becomes apparent during the process of drawing, layering colors, sanding and scraping. Through my portraits (of people, animals, objects and landscapes) I explore an imagined, fantastical universe of strange planets, transmuted species and surreal situations. They are a study in contrasts- the juxtaposition of varying textures and patterns, the play between bursts of bold color and intricately drawn details and line work, and the balance between playful humor and an undercurrent of darker, more mysterious emotions. The compositions are often graphic in nature but also favor quavery pencil lines and messy brushstrokes that invoke a more hand-made quality. Every day my invented language of symbols grows, repeats and changes. My paintings are not meant to be didactic, rather to be read as pages torn from a strange storybook of narrative quandaries and puzzles.”
Read my most recent newsletter (and subscribe!) here:
June 29, 2023 Newsletter: "Have you read my BIG news?"
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You can also find me on:
* my website
* Facebook (Update: I deactivated and I am loving life!)
* Instagram > jenniferdavisart
* Sebastian Foster (Fine Art Prints)
* My CV/exhibition history
"Minneapolis-based painter Jennifer Davis possesses a highly developed sensibility for pattern and color, creating an almost tangible world of strange creatures that seem to live and breathe, despite their simplified forms."
- Juxtapoz
"Endlessly inventive and gently strange, her characters are simultaneously unsettling and endlessly appealing. With tiny eyes and zipper mouths, they bumble haplessly about, falling into dreamy reveries or tumbling into ponds. Davis' endlessly fertile imagination is well served by her linear style and pale palette."- Minneapolis Star Tribune
"It can be said that her paintings are self portraits, but not in any staid sense of the word. She appears in each composition—like an avatar of many guises—her primary incarnation a wide-eyed girl who is mild yet ever-vigilant. She is patient with aliens, a friend to plants and animals; always serving as a protector for the meek and those who can not run. She is, indeed, the mistress of her domain." - C. Randall, Executive Director of Swanson Gallery
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