Artist-to-Artist: Rob Davis Selected by Rashid Johnson

The modestly scaled oil-on-linen paintings of New York-based Rob Davis take 1970s and ’80s American domestic interiors and objects as their subject. While they might initially appear as photorealism, closer viewing reveals a gauzier, mediated affect. Painting from photographs (with an intermediary study in watercolour) Davis evokes a ghost or vestige of the source image rather than a mere virtuosic reproduction. As a result, his paintings harbour an extraordinary potential energy – that something is about to happen, or that the consequences of something that has happened are imminent – that hints at an unsettling underbelly of the era and denies simple nostalgia. 

Rashid Johnson, who selected Davis for Artist-to-Artist 2024, explained his choice:

‘Robert Davis is an artist decidedly deserving of eyes on his robust and sincere practice. I have followed his work and growth as an artist for many years. I am excited to use this opportunity and platform to bring attention to his project.’

About Rob Davis

Rob Davis was born in 1970 in Norfolk, Virginia. He graduated from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1997 with a degree in painting. His work has been exhibited internationally and in the US. Davis currently lives and works in New York. 

Rob Davis is showing with Broadway Gallery at Frieze London 2024.

Further Information

Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2024, The Regent’s Park, 9 – 13 October 2024.

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^{Main image: Rob Davis, Quilt 3, 2024 (detail). Oil on linen. Courtesy Broadway Gallery}