Ron Davis

(b Santa Monica, CA, 29 June 1937).

American painter. He studied engineering at the University of Wyoming, Laramie (1955-6). After this he took a number of short-term jobs before starting to paint in 1959. He then studied at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1960 to 1964, while also spending a period in 1962 studying with Philip Guston at the University Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT. He had his first one-man show in 1965 at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles. From 1966 to 1972 he made his paintings from coloured polyester resin on a fibreglass support, the resin being applied to a waxed surface in many layers from the front backwards. In this way he produced abstract works of geometrical solids employing an illusionistic two-point perspective, reflecting his admiration for Renaissance painters, particularly Uccello. In these works the framing edge is the same as the edge of the solid depicted, as in the polygonal Zodiac (1969; artist's col., see 1970 exh. cat., p. 10), and the colour is often splashed in places in allusion to the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. Like most of these works the geometrical shape in Zodiac is presented as if seen from above, whereas the paintings are invariably hung at eye level, so puzzling the viewer.

In 1972 Davis gave up the polyester resin process for aesthetic and health reasons, and used instead the more traditional medium of acrylic on canvas. Geometry and perspectival illusionism continued to be his main concern, but he now painted tent-like geometrical constructions within a network of incompatible perspective lines, as in Archway (1977; San Francisco, CA, John Berggruen Gal.; see 1978 exh. cat., p. 9). This interest in geometrical images continued in his later work also. (Source: No author, "Ron Davis," The Grove Dictionary of Art Online (Oxford University Press, Accessed June 16, 2004) )