Ronald Davis

(American, born 1937)

Ronald Davis is a contemporary American artist best known for his work associated with Geometric Abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, and Hard-Edge painting. Composed of flat planes of bold color, Davis uses two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and digital space. “Over the years I have oscillated between the hard edge and the painterly. I do both loose and precise with facility,” the artist said of his work. “However in these complicated times a need for clarity seems paramount. I have found that color contrast and interaction trumps drips, splatters, scumbles, and brush work and other non-art content sludge as the means to true expression of the soul and intellect.” His most known work is from his Dodecagon series from 1968–69 where he used colored resin for paint and fiberglass cloth and mat to replace canvas. Born on June 29, 1937 in Santa Monica, CA, Davis spent his early life in Cheyenne, WY. First studying at the University of Wyoming in 1955-56, he transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1960. Since the mid-1960s, his work has circulated around ideas of abstraction, humans' relation to digital space, and the history of painting. Considered among the most important artists of his generation, Davis' long career has been dotted by achievements such as the reception of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a sprawling 2002 retrospective at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, OH. More recently, he has shifted his practice to include digital painting, using similar methods to the artist Joseph Nechvatal. Davis lives and works in Arroyo Hondo, NM. His work are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago.