Etherton: James G. Davis

Etherton Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition celebrating the career of artist James G. Davis, James G. Davis (1931-2016): Down at the Tower Bar. An influential member of Rancho Linda Vista, an artist community in Oracle, Arizona and professor at the University of Arizona from 1970-1991, Davis passed away in 2016.

Down at the Tower Bar includes a selection of the cinematic large-scale oil paintings like Tower Bar and meticulously crafted prints, which propelled him to the forefront of Tucson modernism and demonstrate his ability to fuse the familiar experiences of home with being a citizen of the world.

A larger than life figure, James G. Davis was a painter, printmaker, and provocateur, who challenged the academic conventions of painting while drawing on and updating them in his work. Monumental canvases previously reserved for grand narratives, became stages in which ordinary human dramas played out in domestic interiors, motels, bars and museums. Tower Bar comprises a constellation of narratives in a single painting that tells the stories of the bar’s workers and patrons. Davis heightens the drama with blocks of dark red paint forcing an emotional response from the viewer. The painting is at once about Davis’s compassion for the characters he encountered as well as his ability to universalize his experiences for the viewer. Operating in uncharted territory, somewhere between John Steinbeck and Charles Bukowski, Davis forged his own path as a visual poet with a keen sensitivity to social relationships.

Also on view: new paintings by Turner G. Davis in the Axial Gallery and an installation of small paintings from the Canada series by Michael Chittock in the in-house pop-up. James G. Davis: Down at the Tower Bar opens with a reception, 7-10pm, Saturday, September 9, 2017. The show runs through November 11.

For more information about James G. Davis: Down at the Tower Bar or the artists, James G. Davis, Turner G. Davis, or Michael Chittock, please contact Daphne Srinivasan or Hannah Glasston at (520) 624-7370 or [email protected]