Karin Davie (born 1965) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City and

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

Biography

Davie was born in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada. She attended

Queen's University at Kingston Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public university, public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and ...

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

(RISD). Davie received a

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

art grant in 1992 and 1995, an Elizabeth Foundation Grant in 1998, an

American Academy of Arts & Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqua ...

award in 1999, and a

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...

grant in 1991 and 1999. Davie received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 2015.

Work

Davie is best known for her idiosyncratic twist on the modernist 'stripe' and looping hyperbolic

abstractions Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal ( real or concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the outcome of this process ...

. Her contemporary practice has been viewed in context with ideas of painting-as-performance from 1950s

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

and the 1960s

Op Art Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses distorted or manipulated geometrical patterns, often to create optical illusions. It began in the early 20th century, and was especially popular from the 1960s on, the term "Op ...

. Jan Allen has said that Davie's painting practice "...is a compelling evocation of stamina, evasion, and voracious sensuality. A persistent, undulating rhythm of hiding and revealing, of unseen machinations beneath surfaces, courses through all Davies' work. On a certain level, the diverse cultural productions and visual effects that the artist cites as inspiration for her painting – films, cartoons, reflections in a glossy fender or the swaying figure of a woman walking in a striped dress – are cover stories for, or approximations of, a deeper aesthetic investigation." Jen Graves has said that "Davie has said she thinks of her paintings as parodies of the motions her body has to do to make them." The artist has stated, "The paintings are constructed from repetitive physical movements. I think of 'the gestures' as behaviors that are both informal and obsessive as opposed to grand and aggressive. I am interested in a visual reflection of the complex psychological and social relationships that persist over time to concepts of the 'self' and 'body' in painting." A survey exhibition of Davie's work "Karin Davie: Dangerous Curves", was held at the

Albright Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buffa ...

in 2006.

Collections

Work by the artist is held in the public collections of various museums including the

, Buffalo, New York; The Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; and the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

References

External links

official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davie, Karin 1965 births Canadian women painters Living people 21st-century Canadian women artists

Biography

Work

Collections

See also

References

External links